Food Anal.
Methods
DOI 10.1007/s12161-015-0186-7
Soluble Solids Content and pH Prediction and Maturity
Discrimination of Lychee Fruits Using Visible
and Near Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging
Hongbin Pu 1 & Dan Liu 1 & Lu Wang 1 & Da-Wen Sun 1,2
Received: 9 November 2014 / Accepted: 23 April 2015
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technique has shown
promise as a rapid and nondestructive tool to evaluate various
internal quality attributes of fruits and vegetables. The objec-
tive of this study was to investigate the nondestructive predic-
tion of soluble solids content (SSC) and pH of lychees and
maturity discrimination. Two hyperspectral imaging systems
of visible/short-wave near infrared range (600–1000 nm,
Spectral Set I) and long-wave near infrared range (1000–
2500 nm, Spectral Set II) were employed. Results showed that
Spectral Set II (SSC: rp =0.877, RMSEP=0.911 °Brix; pH:
rp =0.745, RMSEP=0.291) performed better than Spectral
Set I (SSC: rp =0.790, RMSEP=1.279 °Brix; pH: rp =0.701,
RMSEP=0.308) for the internal quality prediction of litchi
and maturity discrimination. The partial least square discrim-
inant analysis (PSL-DA) model had a discrimination rate of
90.63 % for Spectral Set I and 96.88 % for Spectral Set II. β-
Coefficients of partial least squares regression (PLSR) models
were used to choose optimal wavelengths for quality predic-
tions. The performance of optimized PLSR in both spectral
sets were comparable to the models developed using the
whole spectral range.
Keywords Nondestructive . Hyperspectral imaging .
Lychee . Maturity discrimination . Soluble solids content . pH
* Da-Wen Sun
dawen.sun@ucd.ie; www.ucd.ie/refrig; www.ucd.ie/sun
1
College of Light Industry and Food Sciences, South China
University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, People’s Republic of
China
2
Food Refrigeration and Computerised Food Technology (FRCFT),
Agriculture and Food Science Centre, University College Dublin,
National University of Ireland, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
Introduction
Fruits are one of the main components of human diet. They
provide abundant nutritional elements for human body.
Therefore, both buyers and consumers attach great importance
to the quality of fruits. Therefore, preservation techniques such as
refrigeration (Sun 1997; Sun and Eames 1996; McDonald et al.
2001; Wang and Sun 2004; Kiani and Sun 2011; Zheng and Sun
2004) and drying (Cui et al. 2008; Delgado and Sun 2002) are
commonly employed to maintain their qualities. The quality of
fruits can be determined by many physical, physiological, nutri-
tional, and pathological attributes that affect fruit shelf life. These
factors not only affect the taste and color of fruit but also act as a
prerequisite for synthesis of fruit vitamin. Lychee or litchi
(Lychee chinensis Sonn.), a member of the family
Sapindaceae, is a subtropical to tropical fruit with high commer-
cial value in international trade, and its consumption has in-
creased significantly in recent years due to its flavor and nutritive
components. China is the leading lychee producer followed by
India and Taiwan (Ghosh 2001). In recent years, other countries
have recognized the market potential of lychees internationally
and have increased fruit import from both southern and northern
hemisphere production areas (e.g., China, Israel, Australia,
Thailand, India, Vietnam, and Africa) by taking advantage of
seasonal differences in production. However, the highly perish-
able nature of the fruit makes it difficult for the lychees to with-
stand long-distance shipment. Therefore, higher quality and more
consistent fresh lychees at the origin country are required in order
to meet the quality standards upon arrival at the destination.
The quality attributes of a fresh lychee include external
appearance (size, shape, color, gloss, and free from defects
and decay) and internal quality aspects (firmness, organic acid,
soluble solids content, pH, and vitamins). While external ap-
pearance can be assessed by modern imaging or computer
vision technology (Sun and Brosnan 2003; Jackman et al.

2008; Costa et al. 2011; Sun 2004; Wang and Sun 2002),
internal quality aspects are normally evaluated by traditional
analytical methods. Among the internal quality attributes of a
lychee, soluble solids content (SSC) and pH are probably the
most important internal quality indicator of fruit maturity and
postharvest quality of a lychee. Traditional analytical methods
used for these quality measurements are based on complex
preparation of samples, using expensive chemical reagents
and involving a considerable amount of manual work.
Furthermore, traditional methods are also destructive. To meet
the quality requirements and to improve competitiveness of the
fruit production industry, rapid, nondestructive, and automated
inspection techniques and grading systems are essential.
Among them, spectroscopic and hyperspectral imaging sys-
tems have many advantages compared to classical chemical
and physical analytical methods in the assessment of fruit in-
ternal qualities (Nicolaï et al. 2007; Lorente et al. 2012;
Magwaza et al. 2012; Cen et al. 2014; Yu et al. 2014), in
particular hyperspectral imaging has recently been extensively
investigated for food quality evaluation (ElMasry et al. 2011;
Barbin et al. 2012a; Wu and Sun 2013; Wu et al. 2012;
Elmasry et al. 2012; Barbin et al. 2012b). These advantages
include short measuring time with limited sample preparation
and allowing several constituents to be evaluated at the same
time. A number of independent research groups are exploring
nondestructive visible/near infrared (Vis/NIR) spectroscopy
technology for fruit analysis (McGlone and Kawano 1998;
McGlone et al. 2002, 2003). Additionally, many other newly
published papers have also investigated the feasibility of Vis/
NIR and NIR spectroscopy for predicting the SSC and pH of
various fruits, such as apple (Bobelyn et al. 2010; Bertone et al.
2012; Mendoza et al. 2012), pear (Sun et al. 2009; Paz et al.
2009), grape (Cao et al. 2010; Parpinello et al. 2013), pineap-
ple (Seng Chia et al. 2012), kiwifruit (Moghimi et al. 2010),
etc, showing the capability of spectroscopic technique for the
prediction of fruit internal quality characteristics. However,
spectroscopic method has a drawback compared with
hyperspectral imaging because it acquires the spectral data
from a single point or from a small portion of the tested fruit.
Hyperspectral imaging, on the contrary, has advantages of be-
ing able to receive distributed spectral responses from the
whole surface of a fruit image (Sun 2010). Attempts on using
hyperspectral imaging as a nondestructive method for
assessing internal quality attribute of fruits have been investi-
gated by some authors, the majority of which have focused on
soluble solids content prediction (ElMasry et al. 2007; Peng
and Lu 2008; Mendoza et al. 2011; Rajkumar et al. 2012;
Leiva-Valenzuela et al. 2013). (ElMasry et al. 2007) investigat-
ed the possibility of using hyperspectral imaging (400–
1000 nm) for nondestructive determination of total soluble
solids (TSS) and acidity (expressed as pH) in strawberry. The
optimized MLR models for TSS (SEP=0.211, r=0.80, and six
optimal wavelengths) and pH (r=0.94, SEP=0.091, and eight
Food Anal. Methods
optimal wavelengths) demonstrated good prediction perfor-
mance. On the other hand, (Rajkumar et al. 2012) studied
banana fruit quality and maturity stages using hyperspectral
imaging technique, and with the MLR models based on the
optimal wavelengths a coefficient of determination of 0.85 was
achieved for predicting TSS of the banana fruits. Recently, a
relatively lower correlations (rp =0.69–0.79) were obtained for
SSC prediction of blueberries using NIR hyperspectral imag-
ing in the spectral range of 500–1000 nm (Leiva-Valenzuela
et al. 2013). In addition, some researchers have also investigat-
ed the possibility of using fluorescence mode for fruit SSC
evaluations, the prediction accuracy of SSC obtained by
(Noh and Lu 2007) using “Golden Delicious” apple was with
r=0.66 and RMSEP=1.19 and by (Liu et al. 2008) in navel
orange was with r = 0.96 and SEP = 0.28. Furthermore,
hyperspectral imaging was used to assess SSC of Golden
Delicious apples (Peng and Lu 2008; Mendoza et al. 2011),
with r=0.883 and SEP=0.73 %, and r=0.88 and SEP=0.7
being obtained by (Peng and Lu 2008) and (Mendoza et al.
2011), respectively. All these studies demonstrated the feasi-
bility of HSI to measure internal quality attributes of fruit.
Despite the increased application of HSI technique in fruit
quality assessment, few studies have sought to compare HSI
instruments in different spectral ranges, in particular no
hitherto-published research has dealt with the prediction of
SSC and pH in lychees and its maturity discrimination by
HSI. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the performance
of two commercially available HSI instruments in different
spectral ranges and the corresponding models established in
predicting pH and SSC of lychees as well as the possibility of
maturity discrimination.
Materials and Methods
Fruit Samples and Reference Measurements
Fresh lychee fruits (Lychee chinensis Sonn. “Guiwei”) at com-
mercial maturation season were obtained from the commercial
orchards in Guangdong Province, China, from June to
July 2013. It is essential to have sound appearance of the
tested fruits for the experiments and therefore all abnormal
fruits were discarded. Ninety-six fruits free from any abnor-
mal features such as blemish, bruises, diseases, and contami-
nations were selected. Before the analysis of the samples, all
fruits were manually classified into two groups for
representing immature and mature stages with each groups
consisting of 48 lychee fruits, the fruits containing equal or
more than 30 % green area were classified as immature fruits
(Fig. 1b). The average size of the lychee fruit was 3–3.5 cm in
diameter. The group was selected randomly for hyperspectral
imaging and subsequent quality parameters measurement.
The tested fruits in each maturity stage were randomly divided
Food Anal. Methods
Fig. 1 Hyperspectral imaging systems and example of lychee RGB
images. a Configuration of the hyperspectral imaging systems: 1,
1004×1002 CCD camera; 2, spectrograph (400–1000 nm); 3, camera
lens (23-mm focal length); 4, fiber optic line light; 5, 320×256 CCD
camera; 6, spectrograph (1000–2500 nm); 7, camera lens (30.7-mm
focal length); 8, halogen lamp; 9, litchi sample; 10, translation belt; 11,
motor; and 12, dark chamber. b RGB image of litchi fruit for immature (a)
and mature (b)
into two subgroups. Subgroup 1 consisted of 64 fruits with 32
samples for each maturity stages, which were used as a train-
ing set for developing calibration models. Subgroup 2
consisted of 32 fruits with 16 samples for each maturity stages
and were used for validation of the models.
Two quality attributes of each fruit (SSC and pH) were
measured and used as indicators of fruit quality. After acquir-
ing the spectral images, each fruit was peeled and the pulp
portion was juiced to determine pH and SSC at room temper-
ature of 25 °C. The pH of the lychee juice was determined
with a pH meter (Model FE20, Mettler-Toledo Co., Zurich,
Switzerland), and soluble solids content (°Brix) was deter-
mined using a digital refractometer with a range of 0–53
°Brix (Model PAL-1 3810, Atago Co., Tokyo, Japan). The
SSC of the lychee fruit varied between 15.8 and 21.4 °Brix
with a mean of 18.9 °Brix and a standard deviation (SD) of
1.44 °Brix. The pH of the lychee fruit varied between 4.43 and
5.69 with a mean of 5.12 and a SD of 0.34.
Hyperspectral Imaging Systems
There were two hyperspectral imaging systems used in this
study for the acquisition of hyperspectral images of lychee.
The working spectral ranges of two systems were 400–1000
(System I) and 1000–2500 (System II). Both systems were
line-scanning configuration. As shown in Fig. 1a, System I
consisted of a line-scan spectrograph (Imspector V10E,
Spectral Imaging Ltd., Oulu, Finland) covering the spectral
range of 400–1000 nm, a high-resolution 1004×1002 camera
(DL-604 M, Andor, Ireland), a camera lens with focal length
of 23 mm (OLE23, Schneider, Germany) for the spectral
range of 400–1000 nm, an illumination source (150-W halo-
gen lamp source attached to a fiber optic line light positioned
at an angle of 45° to the moving belt), a conveyer belt operated
by a stepper motor (IRCP0076-1COMB, Isuzu Optics Corp.,
Taiwan, China), and a computer equipped with data acquisi-
tion software (Spectral Image software, Isuzu Optics Corp.,
Taiwan, China). The main components of System II consisted
of a line-scan spectrograph (Specim V25E, Spectral Imaging
Ltd., Oulu, Finland) covering the spectral range of 1000–
2500 nm, a high-resolution 320 × 256 camera (XC403,
Xenics Infrared Solutions, Leuven, Belgium), a camera lens
with focal length of 30.7 mm (OLES30, Xenics Infrared
Solutions, Leuven, Belgium) for the spectral range of 1000–
2500 nm, two 150-W halogen lamps forming the illumination
unit (2900-ER, Illumination Technologies Inc., New York,
USA), a conveyer belt operated by a stepper motor
(IRCP0076-1COMB, Isuzu Optics Corp., Taiwan, China),
and a computer equipped with data acquisition software
(Spectral Image software, Isuzu Optics Corp., Taiwan, China).
In experiments, the systems were able to scan lychees placed
on the translation belt. In order to obtain good-quality images,
the exposure time was adjusted to 30 ms and speed of displace
platform was 1.4 mm/s for System I, while the exposure time
was adjusted to 2 ms and speed of displace platform was
22 mm/s for System II. Each collected spectral images was
stored as a three-dimensional image (x, y, λ). For correction of
light source effects, the original hyperspectral images (R0) were
corrected into the reflectance mode (Rc) based on white refer-
ence images W for a standard teflon white tile (~100 % reflec-
tance) and black reference images B for dark current (~0 %
reflectance). The formula applied was as follows:
R0 −B
Rc ¼  100% ð1Þ
W −B
The corrected images formed the basis for the subsequent
image analysis to extract information about the spectral prop-
erties of each fruit for selection of effective wavelengths and
multivariate analysis purposes. Due to the decreased CCD
detector sensitivity in the wavelength regions of 308–
598 nm with noises, subsequent analysis of hyperspectral im-
ages acquired by System I was performed only on data in the

spectral range of 600–1000 nm. Finally, two sets of spectral
data were obtained, which were the one within the wavelength
ranges of 600–1000 nm (Spectral Set I, 248 wavelength var-
iables) and the one within the wavelength ranges of 1000–
2500 nm (Spectral Set II, 236 wavelength variables).
Extraction of Spectral Data
After the image acquisition, an algorithm was implemented to
segment each lychee from the background for each hypercube
of lychees and calculate their mean spectra (Fig. 2). For
hyperspectral images in Spectral Set I, a binary mask was built
to recognize the fruit from the background using threshold
segmentation in the hypercube. This was accomplished in
the spectral image at 710 nm, which gave the maximum con-
trast between the lychees and the background. The white
pixels in the mask were used as a region of interest (ROI) to
extract the spectral data from the calibrated hyperspectral im-
age. In total, 96 average spectra (600–1000 nm) representing
the 96 tested lychees were calculated and stored for develop-
ing regression models. Similar segmentation process was also
conducted for hyperspectral images in Spectral Set II as
shown in Fig. 2e–h. Background segmentation and extraction
of reflectance spectra from the hyperspectral images were car-
ried out using the software ENVI 4.8 (ITT Visual Information
Solutions, Boulder, CO, USA).
Selection of Optimal Wavelengths and Regression Model
Development for Predicting Quality Attributes
From a multivariate calibration perspective, the problem of
multicollinearity among contiguous wavelengths makes
wavelength selection necessary. Several wavelength selection
approaches have been discussed in recently published reviews
(Zou et al. 2010; Liu et al. 2013). Partial least square (PLS)
regression is one of the commonly used procedures for
Fig. 2 Main steps involved in
segmentation of hyperspectral
image: a, selecting 710 nm image;
b, binarization (defining the ROI);
c, applying the mask I; d,
extracting litchi spectra (600–
1000 nm); e, selecting 1675 nm
image; f, binarization; g, applying
the mask II; and h, extracting
litchi (1000–2500 nm)
Food Anal. Methods
selecting key wavelengths, particularly when a large number
of variables are involved. In this study, β-coefficients
resulting from the PLS calibration model were used for iden-
tifying the optimal wavelengths. The wavelengths corre-
sponding to the highest absolute values (regardless of the sign)
of β-coefficients were considered as optimal wavelengths.
The PLS algorithm determines a set of orthogonal projection
axes W, called PLS weights, and wavelength scores T. The
regression coefficients (β) can be obtained by regressing Y
onto the wavelength scores T as follows (Chong and Jun
2005):
y ∧ ¼ X Wkβ ¼ Tβ ð2Þ

−1
β ¼ W * qT ¼ W P T W qT ð3Þ
where ŷ is the predicted value of the attribute of interest, X
is an n×m matrix of spectral data (n is the number of samples
or number of spectra, m is the number of wavelengths), β is
the vector containing the regression coefficients (m×1) ob-
tained by the calibration model, T is the wavelength scores,
W* is the m×k matrix of X-weights defining the common
latent variable space T (n×k) relating X and y (k is the number
of latent variables), q is the y-loadings (1×k), p is the m×k
matrix of X-loadings and W is PLS weights.
Prediction models between the spectral reflectance and the
quality parameters (SSC and pH) of the fruits were developed
by using PLS analysis. PLSR is a robust and reliable method
for constructing empirical predictive models (Wold et al.
2001). The spectra utilized here included two categories, i.e.,
full-wavelength spectra and simplified spectra. Therefore, two
categories of PLSR calibration models were built. All steps
described for spectral analysis were carried out in multivariate
analysis software (Unscrambler version 9.7, CAMO,
Trondheim, Norway). The quality of calibration models were
evaluated by root mean square error of calibration (RMSEC),
root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP), and the
Food Anal. Methods
correlation coefficient (r) between the predicted and measured
value of the attribute. In addition, ratio of performance devia-
tion (RPD), i.e., the ratio of the standard deviation of the
reference values (SD) over the root mean square error of
cross-validation (RMSECV) was employed.
Spectral Analysis for Identifying Maturity Stage
Principal component analysis (PCA) models were generated
in an effort to classify the immature and mature fruits into two
distinct classes. The first few principal components resulting
from PCA are usually used to examine the common features
among samples and their grouping. Plotting the principal com-
ponent score plot of the first few principal components
resulting from PCA will give common features among sam-
ples and their grouping (Abdi and Williamns 2010).
Partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was
also performed to develop supervised classification models
for the immature and mature lychee fruit. PLS-DA is a classi-
fication method based on modeling the differences between
several classes with PLS by assigning the reference value
(dummy variable) for each sample (Pholpho et al. 2011).
The evaluation of model performance was achieved through
the analysis of discrimination rate (%) by the following equa-
tion (Teye et al. 2013):
N1
DR ¼  100% ð4Þ
N2
where DR is the discrimination rate (%), N1 is the number of
samples correctly identified in either the training set or predic-
tion set, and N2 is the total number of samples used in either
the training set or prediction set.
Results and Discussion
Typical Characteristics of the Reflectance Spectra
of Lychee
The typical spectral pattern of lychee sample in two spectral
sets is shown in Fig. 3. In case of Spectral Set I, the reflectance
curve had three broadband absorption regions around 680 and
960 nm in addition to small absorption region at 840 nm
(Fig. 3a). The region around 680 reflects the maturity of ly-
chees accompanied with the change of fruit color caused by
anthocyanins and chlorophyll contents and the peak was larg-
er for immature fruit (McGlone et al. 2002; Peshlov et al.
2009). The absorption regions in the short wave NIR at 840
and 960 nm were likely attributed to the sugar absorption
bands and the combination effect of OH groups from carbo-
hydrates and water (McGlone and Kawano 1998), since
lychees had a SSC of 15–25 % and an estimated water content
of 80–90 %.
In the long wave near infrared spectral region (1000–
2500 nm), the observed absorption peaks (Fig. 3b) were due
to absorptions by hydrogen containing bonds (O–H, C–H, and
N–H) (Osborne et al. 1993), which are basics of the constitu-
ents of lychee samples and are critical for the attribute predic-
tion. The presence of water in lychee caused an absorption
peak appeared at 1050 (O–H stretching second overtones).
Another local absorption maximum appeared at 1250 nm
was due to C–H stretching second overtone. Besides, the peak
at 1661 nm and 1839 nm was associated with the C–H stretch
and O–H stretch of sugar. It is clear that the main cause of
spectral variation was due to changes in water, amino acid and
carbohydrate composition or contents during maturity stages.
Prediction Results for SSC and pH of Lychee Samples
PLSR Models Using the Whole Spectral Range
PLS prediction results for SSC and pH in the two spectral sets
are presented in the scatter plots (Fig. 4a–d). In all figures, the
ordinate and abscissa represent the predicted and measured
fitted values of the appropriate parameters, respectively. The
values of correlation coefficient obtained in Vis/NIR region
(rp =0.79) were less than those obtained by (ElMasry et al.
2007) with strawberries with rp =0.85 and RESEP=0.184
°Brix; and those obtained by (Leiva-Valenzuela et al. 2013)
with blueberries with the rp values ranging between 0.78 and
0.82 and the RMSEP values between 1.30 and 1.55 %, which
was similar to other authors’ results. The limited prediction
accuracy of PLSR model with Vis/NIR spectra is possibly due
to the presence of uneven thickness and roughness of lychee
pericarps as well as complex pulp texture and composition. In
addition, previous studies (Lu 2004; Ruiz-Altisent et al. 2010)
have also suggested that the visible spectral region was less
useful for SSC prediction. This assumption was in line with
the finding of the current research. Compared to the spectral
region of 600–1000 nm, the use of 1000–2500 nm did result in
significant improvements for the prediction of SSC (Fig. 4a,
b). The rp and RMSEP for 1000–2500 nm were 0.877 and
0.911 °Brix, respectively, in comparison with 0.790 and 1.279
°Brix for 600–1000 nm. The choice of the spectral range
1000–2500 nm was made to focus on those wavelengths that
proved more sensitive to soluble solid contents.
The pH prediction results using the two spectral regions
were not as good as those for SSC, with the rp values equaling
0.701 and 0.745 and the RMSEP of 0.308 and 0.291 for
Spectral Set I and Spectral Set II, respectively (Fig. 4c, d).
The predictability of pH obtained in this study was lower than
those obtained by (ElMasry et al. 2007) using strawberry with
rp =0.87 and RMSEP=0.129; by (Baiano et al. 2012) with rp =
0.893 and 0.947 using red and black grapes; and by (Moghimi

Fig. 3 Mean spectra extracted
from litchi samples in wavelength
range of 600–1000 nm (a) and
1000–2500 nm (b)
et al. 2010) using kiwifruits with rp =0.943 and RMSEP=
0.076. However, these differences could be due to the differ-
ent structure of lychee from the other fruits and lower levels of
organic acids in lychees with respect to soluble solids
concentrations. The PLSR model exhibited a relatively
good capability in predicting pH in System II spectral
sets (Fig. 4c, d). Therefore, the spectral range of 1000–
2500 nm was selected in order to focus on those wave-
lengths that proved more sensitive to pH. The results
showed that for predicting both SSC and pH in lychees,
the NIR spectral region was more useful.
The models shown in Fig. 4a, c were not good because of
the visible spectrum stayed relatively flat from 720 to 960 nm.
As the regions around 840 and 960 nm are likely related to the
sugar absorption and the OH groups from carbohydrates and
water (McGlone and Kawano 1998), however the pH and
SSC of lychee are dependent on both carbohydrate and water
information contained in the spectra. It was clear that the vis-
ible spectrum contained little carbohydrate and water informa-
tion, whereas in near infrared spectral region (1000–
2500 nm), the peaks at 1050 and 1250 nm were O–H stretch
and C–H stretching second overtones of water. Besides, 1661
and 1839 nm were associated with the C–H stretch and O–H
stretch of sugar. The main spectral variations were due to the
changes in water, amino acid, and carbohydrate composition
in lychee samples. Therefore, the prediction of the models for
pH and SSC was the best for the region of long wavelengths
Fig. 4 The score plots of PCA
conducted using Spectral Set I (a)
and Spectral Set II (b)
Food Anal. Methods
(1000–2500 nm), which contain information on both sugar
(carbohydrate) and water components. In addition, (Liu et al.
2004) have proved that sugar content and acidity in fruit could
be more accurately determined using near infrared spectros-
copy (800–2500 nm) and (Cozzolino et al. 2006) have con-
firmed that the regions around 1400, 1900, and 2170 nm were
related to O–H and C–H bonds that would be linked to SSC in
wine grapes.
PLSR Models Using the Selected Wavelengths
In many situations, wavelength selection can improve
model performance and model characteristics (e.g.,
higher speed and greater cost-effectiveness) by identify-
ing and removing useless, noisy, and redundant wave-
lengths. Appropriate wavelength selection can not only
expedite data processing and improve model accuracy
and robustness but also facilitate the establishment of
consistent hyperspectral imaging systems with simple
structure, short acquisition time, and low cost for real-
time applications. In this study, β-coefficients resulting
from PLSR models were employed to allocate important
wavelengths aiming to establish simplified regression
models. For predicting SSC, six feature wavelengths in
visible region and short-wave near infrared region (641,
686, 742, 855, 939, 964 nm) and 12 optimal wave-
lengths in long-wave near infrared region (1031,1089,
Food Anal. Methods

1357, 1477, 1744, 1890, 2023, 2218, 2275, 2351,2383,
2445 nm) were identified, which corresponded to the
highest absolute values of β-coefficients in the plot in
spite of its negative or positive sign (figure not shown).
It is clear that the regions around 680 nm reflected the
change of fruit color caused by anthocyanins and chlo-
rophyll. The major absorbance regions of water around
960 nm were found in the selected visible range. In
addition, six optimal wavelengths of 681, 715, 761,
816, 907, and 960 nm in Spectral Set I and 11 wave-
lengths of 1089, 1165, 1274, 1357, 1478, 1763, 1890,
2023, 2276, 2326, and 2382 nm in Spectral Set II were
found to be responsible for pH prediction of the fruit.
Once the optimal wavelengths were selected, these wave-
lengths were then used as effective wavelengths to replace the
full range spectra for the prediction of SSC and pH of lychees.
PLSR models were established based on the reduced spectral
data and the results are shown in Table 1. It can be seen that
the performance of optimized PLSR models in both spectral
sets were almost similar or better to the models developed
using the whole spectral range. This is attributed to the fact
that the problems of colinearity and overfitting were alleviated
in optimized models that utilized only the essential wave-
lengths and neglected the useless wavelengths that do not
carry much spectral information (Zou et al. 2010). The SSC
prediction accuracy of optimal PLSR models with six and 11
wavelengths were higher in the validation set respectively
(Spectral Set I: rp =0.777, RMSEP=1.227; Spectral Set II:
rp =0.874, RMSEP=0.886) than in the training set (Spectral
Set I: rc =0.737, RMSEP=0.849; Spectral Set II: rc =0.849,
RMSEP=0.665), indicating a relatively good performance
of the models for predicting SSC nondestructively. However,
for pH, the results of the validation sets were not as good as
those in the calibration sets. It was also shown that optimal
PLSR model performed better in Spectral Set II than in
Spectral Set I, with the highest RPD of 1.877 and1.741 for
SSC and pH, respectively. Although the PLS models with
Spectral Set II were slightly better than Spectral Set I, no
satisfactory prediction result of SSC and pH of lychee fruit
(rp <0.9) was achieved, possibly due to its unique structure
and properties.
Prediction Results for Maturity Discrimination of Lychee
Fruit
PCA Analysis
PCA is a technique used to interpret spectral data by identify-
ing the most important directions of variability in the multi-
variate data space. This technique has been employed by
(Reichel et al. 2010) for classification of harvest maturity of
lychee fruit in terms of its quality changes during cold storage,
and by using this analysis, it was realized the differentiation of
four maturity classes from premature to full-mature lychee
fruit. PCA was carried out in this study to visualize the trends
or clusters among samples from their spectral profile. Figure 5
shows the score plots of the first two PCs from PCA conduct-
ed on all full spectral data in Spectral Set I (accounted for 63 %
of the difference in maturity stages of lychee fruits, Fig. 5a)
and Spectral Set II (accounted for 63 %, Fig. 5b). It was no-
ticed that two groups, or clusters, can be observed in the scat-
ter plot, meaning that the profiles of objects in the same cluster
are very similar and the profiles of objects in different clusters
are distinct. There presented also some overlaps in the score
plot. The maturity discrimination of lychee fruit was not very
satisfactory in the principal component space. The adoption of
supervised classification method has potential for further im-
provement of the classification accuracy.
PLS-DA Discrimination Model
PCA is an unsupervised method, and it cannot be used for
building predictive model, for instance, to classify samples
into one or another category (Lin et al. 2011). In such situa-
tions, the supervised classification method PLS-DA was
adopted to develop discrimination models (Pérez-Enciso and
Tenenhaus 2003). PLS-DA model was thus built considering
the spectra as X variables, while y variables were associated

Table 1 Performance of PLSR

(full and simplified) models for Spectral Attributes No LVs RPD Calibration Prediction
SSC and pH prediction based on
different spectral sets set of W. rc RMSEC rp RMSEP

I SSC 248 6 1.492 0.713 0.881 0.790 1.279

6 4 1.539 0.737 0.849 0.777 1.227
PH 248 3 1.576 0.754 0.198 0.701 0.308
6 4 1.537 0.737 0.204 0.672 0.315
II SSC 236 6 1.873 0.850 0.659 0.877 0.911
12 6 1.877 0.849 0.665 0.874 0.886
PH 236 5 1.771 0.842 0.162 0.745 0.291
11 4 1.741 0.812 0.176 0.774 0.265
 Food Anal. Methods

Fig. 5 Prediction results of SSC

and pH using full wavelength
PLSR models in the two spectral
sets: a SSC prediction based on
Spectral Set I, b SSC prediction
based on Spectral Set II, c pH
prediction based on Spectral Set I,
and d pH prediction based on
Spectral Set II

with the lychee maturity (one different y variable with −1 or 1
for immature and mature stage, respectively, depending on
whether the tested sample belonged or not to the considered
data group). The classification results for unknown samples
are shown in Table 2. The correct identification rate of 90.63
and 96.88 % for maturity discrimination was achieved for
Spectral Set I and Spectral Set II, respectively. The discrimi-
nation of maturity stages among lychee fruits can be reflected
by their specific fingerprint of spectra coupled with multivar-
iate classification method.
Conclusions
Measurements of soluble solids content (SSC) and acid-
ity (pH) and maturity discrimination of lychees were
achieved using hyperspectral imaging. Reasonable
models were obtained for SSC (rp = 0.877, RMSEP =
0.911 °Brix) and pH (rp =0.745, RMSEP=0.291) when
the reflectance spectra in the range 1000–2500 nm were
used, but lower regression coefficients of 0.790 and
0.701 for SSC and for SSC were obtained when the
range was limited to that of the Vis/NIR equipment
(600–1000 nm). β-Coefficients of PLSR models were
used to choose optimal wavelengths for each quality
parameter (SSC and pH). The performance of optimized
PLSR in both spectral sets was almost similar or better
to the models developed using the whole spectral range.
Spectral features were used to identify maturity stages
of lychee samples. High classification accuracy of
90.63 % for Spectral Set I and 96.88 % for Spectral
Set II for correctly identifying lychee ripeness stage
was achieved using the PLS-DA. The results indicated
that HSI is more useful to predict the state of maturity

Table 2 Confusion matrix for

maturity stage discrimination Spectral set No. of samples Maturity stages Prediction results
using PLS-DA
Mature Immature DR

I 16 Mature 13 3 90.63 %
16 Immature 0 16
II 16 Mature 16 0 96.88 %
16 Immature 1 15
Food Anal. Methods
of lychee fruit than to predict pH and SSC of lychee
fruits. Further improvements in the spectral acquisition
mode and use of more refined physical models may
achieve better prediction of lychee internal qualities.
Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge the Guang-
dong Province Government (China) for its support through the program
“Leading Talent of Guangdong Province (Da-Wen Sun).” This research
was also supported by the National Key Technologies R&D Program
(2014BAD08B09) and the International S&T Cooperation Projects of
Guangdong Province (2013B051000010).
Conflict of Interest Hongbin Pu declares that he has no conflict of
interest. Dan Liu declares that she has no conflict of interest, Lu Wang
declares that she has no conflict of interest. Da-Wen Sun declares that he
has no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies with
human or animal subjects.
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