Rapid and nondestructive assessment of freshness of potatoes using a piezo based sensor

Abstract

The paper has examined on the non destructive assessment of potatoes using a piezo based sensor. In assessing the freshness of the product, there are different research reports, but surface firmness is an excellent indicator and is used extensively in practice. The sensor is used as a vibration sensor where the vibration patterns are recorded and analyzed in frequency domain and then the quality parameters are displayed accordingly. It is found that dry matter is related with the firmness of potato tubers which also converts itself to starch content depending on time and storage of potato tubers as firmness is very useful for processing industry. With some minor software modifications it can be adopted for other vegetables as well.