System and method for hyperspectral image-based quality control analysis of crop loads

A system for imaging-based quality assessment of raw produce loads, the system comprising:

• an imaging structure comprising a mounting beam, wherein the mounting beam comprises a measurement chamber comprising:
• one or more light sources;
• one or more optical sensors operating in visual and/or non-visual spectra, and
• one or more additional sensors;
• wherein the measurement chamber is configured to minimize external light from reaching the one or more camera;
• and
• wherein the mounting beam is configured to allow vertical, lateral and/or longitudinal and movement of the measurement chamber,
• a processing unit comprising:
• a memory;
• and
• a processor coupled to the memory programmed with executable instructions, the executable instructions comprising a monitoring component for:
• a. controlling the vertical, lateral and/or longitudinal movement of the measurement chamber relative to the mounting beam, so as to position the measurement chamber at a predetermined position relative to produce in the produce load;
• b. controlling one or more opto-mechanical parameters of the one or more optical sensors, the opto-mechanical parameters selected from:
• a field of view of the one or more optical sensors, exposure time, aperture, gain, sensitivity, frame rate and any combination thereof;
• c. controlling a position, orientation, light projection and/or light intensity of the one or more light sources;
• d. triggering signal acquisition by the one or more optical sensors and the one or more additional sensors, upon positioning and/or configuration of the imaging chamber, the one or more optical sensors and/or the one or more light sources;
• e. receiving spectral data from the one or more optical sensors and sensor data from the one or more additional sensors;
• f. fusing the spectral and sensor data;
• g. feeding the fused data into an AI, ML, DL algorithm and/or big-data analytics model, to derive internal and/or external quality attributes of the produce;
• and
• h. producing a report indicating the derived internal and/or external quality attributes.