Apparatus and method for measuring pungency of red pepper powder

An apparatus for measuring pungency of red pepper powder comprising:

• a near infrared measuring unit for measuring a spectrum of a reference material or a near infrared spectrum of red pepper powder that is an object of measurement according to a control signal using a near infrared sensor;
• a reference spectrum measuring unit for enabling the near infrared measuring unit to measure the spectrum of the reference material;
• a red pepper powder injecting unit for injecting a sample of the red pepper powder that is the object of measurement;
• a red pepper powder height equalizing unit for equalizing heights of the red pepper powder injected through the red pepper powder injecting unit in order to increase the accuracy of measurement;
• a red pepper powder transferring unit for transferring the red pepper powder that is the object of measurement via a transfer belt in which a measurement hole is formed in order to measure the spectrum of the reference material;
• a red pepper powder ejecting unit for ejecting the completely measured sample of the red pepper powder;
• a display unit for displaying an operation state or a degree of pungency of measurement result;
• a button unit;
• and
• a measurement controller for controlling a general operation according to manipulation of the button unit, if a start of the measurement hole of the transfer belt is detected, opening a reference spectrum measurement opening and closing unit of the reference spectrum measuring unit, measuring the spectrum of the reference material using the near infrared measuring unit through the measurement hole of the transfer belt, if the measurement hole is passed through, closing the reference spectrum measurement opening and closing unit, injecting the red pepper powder, measuring the spectrum of the red pepper powder using the near infrared measuring unit, correcting data of the near infrared spectrum of the red pepper powder input from the near infrared measuring unit to the spectrum of the reference material, calculating a degree of pungency according to a capsaicinoids content measurement recurrence model, and displaying the degree of pungency on the display unit.

A method of measuring pungency of red pepper powder comprising:

• measuring a spectrum of a reference material if the reference material or a reference spectrum measurement hole of a transfer belt is at a position for measuring a near infrared sensor;
• injecting red pepper powder that is an object of measurement to the transfer belt;
• equalizing heights of the red pepper powder injected to the transfer belt;
• measuring a near infrared spectrum of the red pepper powder using the near infrared measuring unit;
• correcting the near infrared spectrum of the red pepper powder to the spectrum of the reference material;
• calculating a degree of pungency of the red pepper powder with a capsaicinoids content measurement recurrence modeling method using the corrected near infrared spectrum data of the red pepper powder;
• and
• displaying the calculated degree of pungency.