Determination of moisture content and contaminated blank dried figs (Ficus carica L.) using dielectric property and artificial neural network

Abstract

Abstract Dried figs are a garden produce that must be graded after harvesting. Moisture levels and contaminated blank are two of the most critical effective elements on the marketability of dried figs, and they are highly related to fig quality. In the present research, an intelligent system was employed to classify dried figs based on moisture content levels and infected blank fruits. Capacitance characteristics, average diameter, and fruit area were all taken into account in this study. The dried fig dielectric constant was measured at six different frequency levels: 12, 22, 32, 42, 52, and 62 MHz. The best frequency was then chosen using the improved distance evaluation feature selection approach. Image processing was also used to determine the average diameter and area of the figures. Following that, the dielectric constant of the most effective frequency, the average diameter, and the area of the fruit were used as input parameters in the artificial neural network classification model to classify and describe the moisture and porosity level of the dried fig. The most essential dielectric constant information relating to moisture and porosity level was at frequencies of 22 and 52 MHz, respectively. Finally, classification accuracy of 95.7% for moisture and 91.3% for porosity level was attained. The results demonstrated the excellent performance and capabilities of the proposed approach for rating the internal quality of dried figs.