Novel Non- Destructive Thermal Imaging Technique for

Inspection of Food: A Review

Deepika S
Department of Food Process Engineering,
National Institute of Technology Rourkela, Odisha, India

Abstract

Food assessment without sample destruction and off-line interruption was a challenge in food
industries for decades. Research have therefore been performed towards the introduction and
advancements of innovative imaging technologies for non-destructive, fast and non-invasive
quality assessment of fresh produce. Thermal imaging is one such analytical emerging, non-
destructive technique for various applications in food industry. Thermal imaging systems have
wide applications due to their, on-line imaging, non-destructive, portability and non-contact
temperature measurement ability. The fundamental principle of this technique is based on the
fact that all body emits infrared radiation. Thermal imaging utilises the emitted radiation from
material’s surface to produce a pseudo image based on the thermal distribution. A large number
of temperature points are computed in thermography, over a particular area and further
processed to form a thermogram of the target surface. High spatial resolution thermography is
a potent tool for visualising and analysing targets with gradients in temperature. Thermal
imaging have wide applications in disease detection, maturity evaluation, equipment
monitoring, packaging inspections, irrigation scheduling, yield forecasting, bruise detection
and foreign substances detection in food.

Keywords: Non-invasive, infrared, thermogram, detection

Introduction

Researchers in food industries are exploring innovative and novel technology for safety and
quality assessment of food. Thermal imaging is 2-dimensional, non-destructive technique for
measuring body’s surface temperature that can be useably employed in non-invasive safety and
quality measurement (Giorleo and Meola, 2002). The prospect of thermal imaging technique
was verified years back by researchers, anyways, limitations prevailed because of the poor
sensitivity of the available thermal imaging systems. Recent advances in the technologies led
to the vast utilisation of the thermal imaging as an analytical tool recording surface
temperatures of spatially resolved images of (Ng, 2009). Thermal imaging has wide
applications in military, fire safety, and material science medicine (Amon et al., 2008). It
facilitates detection of surface temperature of material that is discernible from background
objects (Frater and Arnold, 2000). Thermal imaging enumerates the surface temperature
change with increased spatial resolution and temporal compared to other methods like
thermometers and thermocouples.

Non-invasive assessment techniques gives information of material properties like structure;

separations and discontinuities; mechanical and the physical properties; metrology and
dimensions; dynamic and stress response; chemical and composition analysis; abnormal heat
source and signature analysis (Giorleo and Meola, 2002). Thermal imaging systems are
appropriate for vast range of applications due to their on-line imaging, portability, non-contact
temperature measurement & non-destructive competency. They are able to be applied to
continuous food systems without modification (Nott and Hall, 1999). Temperature mapping
where both temporal temperature distribution patterns and spatial are obtained from a material
having prospective application for food product safety profiling, authenticity and quality
assurance. Raising challenges for consistency, efficiency and objectivity in the food industries,
have demanded the introduction of non-invasive image analysis techniques (Du and Sun,
2004). This paper gives a detailed review of the working principle, advances and the
applications of thermal imaging for safety and quality assessment in the food industries.

Principle of thermal imaging

The fundamental principle of thermal imaging is that all objects emit infrared radiation.
Thermal imaging identifies temperature by determining the pattern of infrared radiated by the
body’s surface. The infrared falls in electromagnetic spectrum in the invisible range where
wavelength ranges from 0.75 to 100 μm; which comprises near, short wave, mid and long-
wave infrared. TI can distinguish different radiation from short infrared wave to long infrared
wave. Long IR wave system demonstrate highest sensitivity in normal temperature, whereas
mid-IR systems demonstrate highest sensitivity at very high temperatures which may be
applied in some food industries preferably. The radiation emitted by a material depends on its
emissivity and temperature. In thermal imaging camera IR energy radiated from the target
product is transformed into electrical signal through infrared detectors in the camera and
demonstrated as a monochrome or colour thermal image. A typical thermal imaging system is
made with a camera, filters, signals, focusing and collimating lenses, detectors and an image
processing system. In thermal imaging, the digital images can be either acquired by active or
passive systems. A typical active and passive thermal imaging system is represented in Fig 1.

Figure 1: Thermal imaging system

Thermal imaging applications in food industry

Postharvest quality

Deteriorated fruits and vegetables ends in apparent losses for food processing because of the
diminished appearance, accelerated ripening and microbial attack (Varith et al., 2003). The
development in thermal imaging systems rapid online detection of damages or bruises on fruits
& vegetables is much achievable. Non-invasive techniques for identifying bruises in fruits
using imaging comprising hyperspectral imaging techniques have been researched (Gowen et
al., 2007). Thermal imaging depicts prospective for quantification of bruise or damage in fruits
& vegetables. Thermal imaging to detect damage and bruise in apples resulted in 100
percentage detection for McIntosh and Fuji apples stored at 3 °C and then with increase in
temperature at 26 °C in 180 s. The temperature response difference between sound and bruised
tissue endorsed to thermal property variances. Fig. 2 depicts the temperature difference in
sound and bruised tissues of apples.

Figure 2: Temperature difference for sound and bruise tissue (Varith et al., 2003).
Cereal quality

Cereals and pulses infestation by pests and contamination is a prevailing problem in the food
processing industries. Sieving, inspection manually and floatation-cracking are generally
employed to determine infestation in cereal processing industries. On the other hand, the
traditional methods are not time consuming and effective (Neethirajan et al., 2007) with less
accuracy. Thermal imaging application for insect detection in post embryonic stage is due to
the difference in temperature by the heat produced from respiration of insects in comparison
with the cereal temperature (Emekci et al., 2002). This can be detected by on-line TI imaging
for identifying grain infestation. This technique can be applied in storage silos to determine the
cold spot but with a limitation that the outer wall should be painted with high emissivity paint.

Detection of eternal body

The existence of external bodies in the final food product is a major issue considered for safety
in food industry. The temperature profile of food and other external bodies is dissimilar and
can be subjugated to unique thermal images (Meinlschmidt and Maergner, 2002). Active
thermography can be employed to identify foreign bodies by thermal imaging based on the
difference in thermal properties. In thermal imaging, Texture analysis, thresholding and fuzzy
logic, image processing methods can be used for quality inspection of nuts (Warmann and
Märgner, 2005).

Limitations of thermal imaging and future developments

Advanced thermal imaging techniques represents various impending applications in quality

assurance and safety monitoring of food. As the high-resolution and cheaper infrared imaging
systems are developed, it is envisioned that the technique will be widely used in the food
processing industries. Anyways few limitations is restricting the widespread of thermal
imaging technique. One such is the requirement for heating or cooling of the product to increase
the contrast in temperature which has been reported by many researchers. The cooling / heating
process may change the food in unacceptable manner due to the sensitivity to high temperature
of food products. Thus the methodology should be product specific based on the threshold
level.
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