Automatic System for the Detection of Defects on Olive Fruits in an Oil Mill

Abstract

The ripeness and sanitary state of olive fruits are key factors in the final quality of the virgin olive oil (VOO) obtained. Since even a small number of damaged fruits may significantly impact the final quality of the produced VOO, the olive inspection in the oil mill reception area or in the first stages of the productive process is of great interest. This paper proposes and validates an automatic defect detection system that utilizes infrared images, acquired under regular operating conditions of an olive oil mill, for the detection of defects on individual fruits. First, the image processing algorithm extracts the fruits based on the iterative application of the active contour technique assisted with mathematical morphology operations. Second, the defect detection is performed on the segmented olives using a decision tree based on region descriptors. The final assessment of the algorithm suggests that it works effectively with a high detection rate, which makes it suitable for the VOO industry.