(494a) Classical and Chemical Imaging Applied to FOOD “Grains” Processing and CONTROL: A Critical REVIEW

Many natural and/or artificial food products are usually present on the market as Particulate Solids (PS) or “grains”. Their quality is defined according to the specific attributes of the single grain and/or the grains as a bulk system. PS characterization, inspection and quality control, inside a specific process and/or handling actions, are usually based on the collection of some specific particles physical-chemical attributes. These attributes represent the key factor to take into account when hardware and software (HW&SW) integrated architectures have to be developed to reach the previous mentioned goals. In this context the possibilities offered by classical Image Processing and Analysis (IP&A) and specialized HyperSpectral (or Chemical) Imaging (HSI) based architectures, and related detection-control logics, able to play both off- and/or on-line are presented and critically evaluated in order to fulfill the previous mentioned goals. Some of the effects related to the adoption of different hardware configurations and different logics to perform the analysis and the selection of different algorithms according to the different characterization, inspection and quality control actions are presented.