ABSTRACT
From current situations of automation in agriculture, post-harvesting operations are the most automated and computerized with near-infrared (NIR) and machine vision technologies among many agricultural operations based on many studies (Miller and Delwiche, 1991; Okamura et al., 1991; Rehkugler and Throop, 1986; Shaw, 1990; Tao et al., 1990; Lu and Ariana, 2002), because these operations offer suitable environments to introduce sensing systems, equipment, and PCs under structures. In grading facilities for fruits and vegetables, where many kinds of operations are conducted from reception to shipping, packing robots and palletizing robots have frequently appeared in fruit grading facilities (Njoroge et al., 2002) since more than 10 years ago, whereas grading robots (Kondo, 2003), which suck round-shaped fruits and inspect by a machine vision system, have only been recently introduced in Asian countries. For grains such as rice and wheat, many facilities were constructed and
14.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 367 14.2 Automation of Grain Processing .................................................................. 368
14.2.1 Grain Elevator ................................................................................... 368 14.2.2 Automatic Rice Quality Inspection System ..................................... 369 14.2.3 Dryers ............................................................................................... 371 14.2.4 Storage in Silos ................................................................................. 371 14.2.5 Hulling Systems ................................................................................ 371 14.2.6 Sorting Systems ................................................................................ 372
14.3 Grading Facility for Fruits and Vegetables ................................................... 373 14.3.1 Reception and Depalletizing Operations .......................................... 373 14.3.2 Dumping, Preprocessing, and Singulation Operation ...................... 373 14.3.3 Mechanical Fruit Conveying and Inspection Systems ..................... 373
14.3.3.1 Fruit Conveyor ................................................................... 373 14.3.3.2 Grading Robot .................................................................... 375
14.3.4 Sorting Operation ............................................................................. 378 14.3.5 Packing and Palletizing Operation ................................................... 378
14.4 Sensors of Inspection Systems ...................................................................... 378 14.4.1 Images from Machine Vision Systems ............................................. 378 14.4.2 Near Infrared Spectroscopy .............................................................. 381
14.5 Summary ...................................................................................................... 381 References .............................................................................................................. 381
numerous automated devices have been introduced to perform various operations especially drying, threshing, milling, and sorting.
