Detection of early bruises in plum using hyperspectral imaging combination with machine learning algorithm

Early detection of plum bruising is important in the online postharvest quality sorting process. This paper explores the rapid detection of bruises in plum at five stages (1, 3, 6, 24, and 48 h after bruising) using hyperspectral imaging system. Spectral preprocessing was performed using five methods (unit vector normalization, multiplicative scattering correction, standard normal variate, detrending, and baseline). The support vector machine was established to discriminate the spectral samples of healthy and bruised plums at stage 1 on full wavelengths. The results indicated that the spectral data pretreated by multiple scattering correction yielded better results. The characteristic wavelengths of the spectra were selected by six algorithms (random frog, competitive adaptive reweighted sampling, variable combination population analysis, successive projection algorithm, uninformative variable elimination and bootstrapping soft shrinkage). Subsequently, the support vector machine was established at stage 1 based on these selected characteristic wavelengths. Comparing the results of models, the support vector machine based on the characteristic wavelengths selected by competitive adaptive reweighted sampling generated a satisfied effect with an accuracy of 95% for the calibration set and 98% for the prediction set. This model was selected for bruise detection in plums at the residual stage. The characteristic wavelength grayscale images selected based on the model were used to successfully visualize the plum bruise regions in five stages using minimum noise fraction transformation and the principal component analysis method. The results showed that the hyperspectral imaging technique combined with machine learning algorithm could be used to identify plum bruises at different stages. This study contributes to the development of an online detection system for bruises in plum.