An electronic nose that determines fruit maturity during harvest

[zakiyatasnim]

Have you ever tried to determine the ripeness of a fruit by smell? Farmers with a well-trained sense of smell can detect a unique combination of alcohols, esters, ketones, and aldehydes, but even an experienced professional can struggle to determine when the fruit is perfect for picking. To help with the harvest, scientists have developed electronic noses to “sniff out” the ripest and juiciest peaches. And a recent study found that the accuracy of determining ripeness with such electronic noses exceeds 98 percent.

Sergio Luis Stevan Jr. and his colleagues at the Federal University benin number data of Technology of Paraná and the State University of Ponta Grossa in Brazil have developed a new electronic nose (e-nose) system. Stevan notes that even within a large orchard, fruit on one tree can ripen faster than fruit on another tree, due to microclimate, rainfall, soil and other factors. Farmers can inspect the fruit and make inferences based on the degree of ripeness of the crop, but they risk losing money if they make a mistake.

Peaches emit vapor-like molecules called “volatile organic compounds,” or VOCs.

vary in quantity and type depending on the different phases of fruit growth,” explains Stevan. Thus, electronic noses are a real discovery, as they allow online monitoring of VOCs generated by the crop.”

Researchers say the electronic nose has several advantages over existing approaches to determining ripeness, including that it performs real-time analysis in an open environment and does not require direct interaction with the fruit.


The e-nose system, created by Stevan's team, has a set of gas sensors sensitive to specific VOCs. The measurements are digitized and pre-processed in a microcontroller. A pattern recognition algorithm is then used to classify each unique combination of VOC molecules associated with the three stages of peach ripening (unripe, ripe, overripe). The data is stored internally on an SD card and transferred via Bluetooth or USB to a computer for analysis.