Towards the Development of a Low-cost Food
Texture Analyser
Gourab Sen Gupta, Weizhong Shi
School of Engineering and Advanced Technology
Massey University
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Email: g.sengupta@massey.ac.nz, shwzh1990@gmail.com
Abstract—Existing texture analysers are expensive and offer
limited programming functionalities to control the instrument for
repetitive measurements. Moreover, measurement data is logged
into a file for post processing and visualization, with no provision
for it to be displayed in real-time. This paper details the
electronic design of a low-cost load cell based food texture
analyser targeted for use in scientific laboratories to evaluate
texture of fruits. Sophisticated programmable devices, such as
high-precision ADC and stepper motor controller/driver have
been incorporated in the design. A LCD based input device
provides a user friendly graphical interface for interaction with
the instrument. Further, a novel command based language has
been developed to control the instrument and a user can write his
own script to control the instrument for an experiment. The
instrument will facilitate food science research and product
development. The system has been tested on several fruits and
measurement data compared with a standard texture analyser.
Keywords- food texture, command script, load cell, real-time
data acquition and display
I. INTRODUCTION
Food texture measurement is a way to know the physical
structure of food [1]. Malcolm Bourne has elaborated how food
texture properties are perceived by the human senses [2].
Textures affect consumer preference of accepted foods and
every food manufacturer strives to make his product of the
highest quality in terms of texture and flavour [3]. These days,
special instruments are used to imitate the feeling and
perception of human by using sophisticated sensors that
measure the properties of texture in a scientific way. For food
product developers, it can help them transfer the target texture
from the lab to the consumer’s kitchen in a scientific way.
Food texture measurement is a well-established technique
that can evaluate the mechanical and physical properties of the
food structure and raw ingredients for pre- and post-quality
control checks [4]. The application of food texture
measurement is across a wide range of food types, including
fruit, meat, confectioneries, snack bars, cheese, etc. Since the
texture is a property related to the sense of touch, it can be
measured easily by using a mechanical method such as force
[4]. The standard tests in food texture measurement, such as
compression, puncture and penetration, cutting and shearing,
and extrusion are used to measure the hardness, softness,
crispness and other properties of food [5]. The user can collect
the data of the mechanical food texture measurement in a
variety of ways. Bourne indicates that the texture is not a
single-dimensional attribute; it is a multidimensional attribute
Ken Mercer, John Bronlund
School of Engineering and Advanced Technology
Massey University
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Email: {k.a.mercer, j.e.bronlund}@massey.ac.nz
[2]. The textual properties of foods have the following
characteristics:
1. They are a group of physical properties
2. They derive from the structure of the food
3. Belong under the mechanical or rheological subheading
of physical properties.
4. Sensed by the feeling of touch
5. Objective measurement is usually by using functions of
mass, force, distance and time.
Food scientists should consider the whole characteristics of
food and choose to measure the most appropriate property for
the product of interest [6]. It is necessary to select an
instrument that is capable of measuring these characteristics.
The resultant data is required to be logged in a file and
displayed on the screen to help scientists to do their analysis.
A fruit texture measurement system focuses on measuring
the properties of fruits. It includes the analyser, which is
capable of measuring the tested food material and collecting
data [7]. The simple structure of a food texture measurement
system is illustrated in Figure 1. While the analyser is taking
measurements, the data is transferred simultaneously to the
computer through a standard protocol. Processed by the
software running on the computer, the correlation of the force,
time, and speed is displayed on the screen at the end of the test.
Figure 1. Functional blocks of a texture measurement system
In general, a texture analyser consists of four core elements
[6]:
1. A probe which is in contact with the food sample. For
example: penetrating probe, spindle, or cutting blade.
2. A driving mechanism that can provide motion (vertical
and horizontal) to the probe.
3. A sensory instrument that can detect the resistance
offered by the food sample
4. A readout system that can display the result of the test.
Currently available texture analysers are quite expensive, in
excess of $10,000. In this paper we propose a low cost solution
detailing the electronic design and a novel command language
for control. The system is evaluated for its accuracy against an
industry standard instrument by doing measurements on a
variety of fruits.
 Figure 2. Block diagram of a food texture analyser

B. Stepper Motor Driver

II. OVERVIEW OF THE ELECTRONIC SYSTEM
The L6472 device (Figure 3), realized in analogue mixed
The functional block diagram of the food texture analyser is signal technology, is an advanced fully integrated solution
shown in Figure 2. There are two independent sections: suitable for driving two-phase bipolar stepper motors with
1. The master board connects with the user interface micro stepping. The device can generate the motion profiles
defined by the users, such as acceleration, deceleration, speed
terminal (slave board), controls the whole system, and
or target position, and are very easy to be programmed through
transfers data generated from the load cell to the PC by
a dedicated register set.
using RS232 communication protocol.
2. The slave board controls the touch screen functions
such as visual buttons and displays the basic status of
the whole system.
The most important components of the design are discussed
below:
A. Microcontroller
The microcontroller used is the Arduino Nano [8] which is
an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on
flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software.

Figure 3. Typical circuit of L6472 [9]

C. Analogue-to-Digital Converter 10. ACC: set the parameter of acceleration
To receive accurate data from the load cell, a 24-bit ADC, 11. DEC: set the parameter of deceleration
AD7192, is selected for this project. The AD7192 is a low 12. Delay: Delay n ms
noise, complete analogue front end for high precision 13. mode_1: activate Interactive Control mode
measurement applications [10]. It contains a low noise, 24-bit 14. P_Speed: pre-test speed
sigma-delta (Σ-Δ) analogue-to-digital converter (ADC). The 15. T_Speed: test speed
on-chip low noise gain stage means that signals of small 16. Distance: the distance of pressing
amplitude can be interfaced directly to the ADC. The device 17. GO_Up: go up at a constant speed
can be configured to have two differential inputs or four 18. GO_Down: go down at a constant speed
pseudo differential inputs. The on-chip channel sequencer 19. Stop: stop the motor;
allows several channels to be enabled, and the AD7192 20. GetPosition: Get the absolute position of the stepper
sequentially converts on each enabled channel. This simplifies motor
communication with the components. The on-chip 4.92 MHz
clock can be used as the clock source to the ADC.
Alternatively, an external clock or crystal can be used. The Users can program these commands on a PC and create a
output data rate from the ADC can be varied from 4.7 Hz to 4.8 script to control the action of the texture analyser. An example
kHz. Figure 4 displays the internal structure of the ADC. of a command script is shown below:
xR+50;
Delay,5000;
xR-50;
Delay,5000;
xM+300;
xM-400;

Initially, for the first 5 seconds the motor will go forward,

with 50 steps/s speed, and then go backward, when the speed is
50 steps/s for the next 5 seconds. Then the motor will move
300 steps forward and 400 steps backward.
IV. EXPERIMENTS, RESULTS AND COMPARISION
Figure 4. The internal structure of the ADC AD7192 [10] At first a squeeze/bouncy ball has been used for testing
because the ball can be compressed easily and it can recover
D. Load cell quickly after being pressed. This enables exactly the same tests
The load cell is a high precision load cell that outputs 2 to be performed on the ball by pressing it at the same point
mV/V. It is driven off a 5 V supply, hence over the entire load using two different texture analysers. The test conditions of the
range of the load cell (0~25 kg) the input of the ADC will not experiments are presented in Table I.
exceed 2*5 = 10 mV.
TABLE I. THE CONDITIONS OF THE PRESSURE BALL TEST
III. SOFTWARE INNOVATION
Test sample Bouncy ball
A unique and novel contribution of this work is in the form
of a new command-language that has been developed which Newly designed instrument and
makes it extremely flexible for the user to control the motor the standard texture analyser in the
movements. Test equipment food lab of Massey University
(Model: TA.XT plus Texture
The commands are combined into a string and transferred Analyser)
to the microcontroller. A series of new commands have been Test method Compression test
introduced as follows:
Probe A professional probe
1. ResetPos: Reset position, the motor will reset to the Pressing point Top of the bouncy ball
zero position. Pre-test speed 5 mm/s
2. Reset: Reset all
Test speed 5 mm/s
3. HardStop: Stop motor immediately
4. SoftStop: Stop motor with a deceleration phase Distance 5 mm
5. GoHome: The GoHome command produces a motion
to the HOME position (zero position) Figure 5 shows the measurements done using the standard
6. xR+: Run forward texture analyser. The X-axis represents time (in Seconds) and
7. xR-: Run backward the Y-axis represents force (in Newton). The maximum force is
8. xM+: move n steps forward 4 N (0.407 kg). In this test, the important observable points are
9. xM-: Move n steps backward the maximum force and the trend of the curve. Figure 6 shows
the results achieved by repeating the same test using the
developed equipment. The data is measured and the graph is
plotted in real time. The X-axis represents time (in seconds)
and the Y-axis represents force (in gm).
The curve in Figure 6 suggests that the maximum force is
0.399 kg (3.913 N) which is almost the same as measured by
the standard texture analyser. However, the noise due to
switching cannot be eliminated completely. In order to
minimise the effect of noise the sample rate is lowered to 1
kHz which is the speed recommended for AD7192.
Figure 5. The result of tests done on squeeze ball using standard texture
analyser (force in Newton vs. time in sec)
Figure 6. The result of tests done on squeeze ball using the newly developed
texture analyser (force in gm vs. time in sec)
Table II summarises the indicators of the accuracy of the
measurement data for the tests done using the standard and the
new instrument respectively. From the measurement data, the
minimum, maximum, and mean errors have been calculated
which are very low. Additionally, the standard deviation of the
error is also very low (~0.035 N or 0.00357 kg), meaning the
results from the two instruments are very close to each other
(for the range of 0 to 0.4 kg)
TABLE II. THE MAXIMUM, MINIMUM, MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION
OF ERROR FOR MEASUREMENTS DONE ON SQUEEZE BALL WITH THE STANDARD
AND THE NEW INSTRUMENT
Sample: Bouncy ball (Force range 0~0.4 kg)
Maximum Error 0.108245886 N
Minimum Error -0.125748005 N
Mean Error 0.012792225 N
Standard Deviation 0.03506309 N
Further tests were done on several fruits to test the full load
range of the instrument. Table III summarises the indicators of
the accuracy of the measurement data for the tests done on
avocado (Figure 7) using the standard and the new instrument
respectively. From the measurement data, the minimum,
maximum, and mean errors have been calculated which are
very low. Additionally, the standard deviation of the error is
also very low (~0.33 N or 0.0337 kg), meaning the results from
the two instruments are very close to each other (for the range
of 0 kg to 5 kg).
TABLE III. THE MAXIMUM, MINIMUM, MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION
OF ERROR FOR MEASUREMENTS DONE ON AVOCADO WITH THE STANDARD AND
THE NEW INSTRUMENT
Sample fruit: Avacado (Force range 0~5 kg)
Maximum Error 0.509297444 N
Minimum Error -1.57621031 N
Mean Error 0.190242465 N
Standard Deviation 0.32996538 N
Figure 7. Testing avocado using the new texture analyser
The next test was done on kiwifruit. Figure 8 shows the
results of force measurement of kiwifruit using the standard
texture analyser. Force in Newton is plotted on Y-axis against
time in seconds on the X-axis. Figure 9 shows the results of the
force measurement of kiwifruit using the new texture analyser.
In this plot force in gm is shown along the Y-axis and time in
seconds along the X-axis. The combined results are shown in
the plot in Figure 10.
Figure 8. The result of tests done on kiwifruit using standard texture analyser
(force in Newton vs. time in sec)
 V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
The objective of the reported research and development
project was to develop a low-cost texture analyser to be used in
the measurement of food texture which uses several specific
probes and a load cell to determine the texture of food. This
was accomplished by designing the machinery parts consisting
of a ball screw shaft and stepper motor. In the electronic part, it
includes a 24-bit sigma-delta analogue to digital converter, a
Figure 9. The result of tests done on kiwifruit using the newly developed versatile stepper motor driver, L6472, and an ATmega328
texture analyser (force in gm vs. time in sec)
microcontroller. The built system is shown in Figure 11 and
costs less than $1000.
120
100
Limit button
80 Test1(Standard)
60 Robotic
Infra-red sensor
Arm
40 and holder

20 Test1(New
Instrument) Touch
0 screen Load cell
under the arm
0.005

0.9
1.065
1.245
1.425
1.605
0.18
0.36
0.54
0.72

Figure 10. Combining the results of the standard texture analyser and the new
instrument for kiwifruit (force in gm vs. time in sec, both scaled by 10)
TABLE IV. THE MAXIMUM, MINIMUM, MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION
OF ERROR FOR MEASUREMENTS DONE ON KIWIFRUIT WITH THE STANDARD
AND THE NEW INSTRUMENT
Sample fruit: Kiwi fruit (Force range 5~10 kg)
Maximum Error 7.797502 N
Minimum Error -6.18065 N
Mean Error 0.429691 N
Standard Deviation 2.786301 N
Table IV summarises the indicators of the accuracy of the
measurement data for the tests done on kiwifruit using the
standard and the new instrument respectively. From the data,
the minimum, maximum, and mean errors have been calculated
which are very low. The standard deviation of the error is more
than that for avocado but still very low (~2.78 N or 0.283 kg)
for the range 5 to 10 kg, which is larger than avocado.
Table V summarises the indicators of the accuracy of the
measurement data for the tests done on persimmon using the
standard and the new instrument respectively. From the data,
the minimum, maximum, and mean errors have been calculated
which are very low. The standard deviation of the error is very
low (~0.934 N or 0.095 kg) for the range 10 to 20 kg.
TABLE V. THE MAXIMUM, MINIMUM, MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION
OF ERROR FOR MEASUREMENTS DONE ON PERSIMMON WITH THE STANDARD
AND THE NEW INSTRUMENT
Sample fruit: persimmon (Force range 10~20 kg)
Maximum Error 2.420821 N
Minimum Error -3.26856 N
Mean Error 0.239707 N
Standard Deviation 0.934364 N
Protection
system
Shaft Ball
Screw
Figure 11. The new texture analyser
The comparison of experimental results obtained using a
standard texture analyser and the newly designed instrument
has been presented. The avocado, kiwifruit, and persimmon
were used as examples to test the performance of the new
equipment. Results show that the machine designed for this
project can be as accurate as the standard one. The complete
range of force of the load cell, from 0 to 20 kg, has been tested.
However, there is still room for improvement. For example,
the effect of noise generated by the stepper motor on the
measurement data needs to be addressed. On a few occasions,
noise has resulted in inaccurate readings. Moreover the nature
of the noise has been very unpredictable. As future work,
software code for filtering and noise reduction can be added.
The touch screen will be enhanced to show more information
that includes not only visual buttons but also the real time
graph generated from the data transferred from the load cell.
The novel contributions of the project are:
1. Implementation of a new programmable system that a
user can use to debug and control the whole system.
The programming method uses a new command
language written in the form of a script. The language is
generic and can be used in any other application where
stepper motor control is required.
2. Using advanced technology, both hardware schematic
design and PCB design were done. The new PCB board
is much smaller than the original one and combines the
motor driver, analogue-to-digital convertor, power
supply and the embedded microcontroller into one.
3. A touch screen based user interface has been
 developed. The touch screen has visual buttons to
control the basic operations of the instrument.
4. The real time graph of the measurement data can be
displayed on the computer screen while the testing is in
progress.
5. An infra-red sensor has been added to detect the
position of the robotic arm, so that the robotic arm can
be slowed down from pre-test speed to test speed before
compressing/penetrating the test sample, which could
otherwise cause damage to the food.
Figure 12. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) for the instrument
Furthermore, a simple intuitive graphical user interface
(GUI) has been developed to directly interact with the
instrument. This is shown in Figure 12. Various speed values
can be set and pushbuttons used to interact with the system.
The text box on the right of the GUI can be used to enter
individual control commands presented in Section III.
REFERENCES
[1] Wilkinson, C., Dijksterhuis, G., and Minekus, M., From food structure
to texture. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 2000. 11(12): p. 442-
450.
[2] Bourne, M.C., Food texture and viscosity: concept and measurement.
2002: Academic Press.
[3] Surmacka, S.A., The whys and whats of objective texture measurements.
Canadian Institute of Food Technology Journal, 1969. 2(4): p. 150-156.
[4] Brown, R.D., Food Texture Analysis. American Laboratory, 2010.
http://americanlaboratory.com/914-Application-Notes/485-Food-
Texture-Analysis/
[5] Rosenthal, A.J., Food texture: measurement and perception. 1999.
[6] Bourne, M.C., Basic principles of food texture measurement, in Dough
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[8] Arduino Nano. Available from:
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardNano
[9] L6472 Datasheet, ST Microelectronics. Available from:
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1922760.pdf
[10] AD7192 Datasheet, Analog Devices. Available from:
http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/data_sheets/AD7191.pdf.