E Nose For Food Quality Assessment

The food we consume can affect any form of contamination that may occur due to storage or chemical changes within the food. There are several viruses and bacteria that cause food contamination and lead to numerous food-borne diseases, for example, Norovirus a very contagious virus caused by contamin

Project Title

E Nose For Food Quality Assessment

Project Area of Specialization

Electrical/Electronic Engineering

Project Summary

The food we consume can affect any form of contamination that may occur due to storage or chemical changes within the food. There are several viruses and bacteria that cause food contamination and lead to numerous food-borne diseases, for example, Norovirus a very contagious virus caused by contaminated food or water. About 351,000 people die of food poisoning globally every year. In a country like Pakistan, the majority of people struggle on daily basis for food, due to the preservation of foods and the use of chemicals to artificially increase the time span of food causes people illness.

This project proposal aims at providing a cost-effective device for food quality assessment using electronic sensors in combination with pattern recognition of the signals coming from the array of sensors. The device named Electronic Nose (E-NOSE) will comprise of electrical, and biosensors that will provide electrical signals by sensing odor or flavors of the food. These signal patterns will be examined by the machine learning algorithms for the identification of the food quality.

 Biosensors play a vital role to detect bacterial contamination in the food samples. Based on the combination of the sensor outputs quality of the food should be detected. It is necessary to develop a system that can help people to identify the freshness of food or quality of food items. Our proposed device will provide good quality (freshness) management in the food sector.

Project Objectives

The main objectives of our project are following

• Prototyping device for food quality assessment.
• Making a system which is used to check the quality of the food on the spot and give us accurate results.
• Application of Machine learning to solve practical problems
• Cost-effective and portable 
• Providing opportunities to local industries to work on our prototype device.
• Indigenous prototyping
• Empowering Food Agencies with a low-cost solution

Project Implementation Method

The objective of this device is to make an electronic device integrated with biosensors that can detect food quality ( freshness, spoilage, etc). The sensors which are used in our project will measure different parameters of food like pH, moisture, and ethanol level, etc. The block diagram below shows the model of the device. The device consists of a processing unit ( Rebarry Pi, Arduino board, Microcontroller, etc ), electrical and biosensors like pH sensor, moisture sensor, and gas sensor Metal oxide sensor, piezoelectric sensor, etc. The food to be checked is near to the corresponding sensor array, which will take the information reading of food freshness level and send it to the processing unit. The microcontroller takes readings from the sensor and decides the result with a predefined algorithm. The result is in the form of “Good to use” and “Not good to use” depending upon the food freshness level. The output is shown on an LCD.

Moreover, we know that electronic noses work in a similar manner to humans. The electronic nose uses sensors as the receptor. When a specific sensor receives the molecules, it transmits the signal to a program for processing, rather than to the brain. Furthermore, the electronic nose was developed in order to mimic human olfaction whose functions are non-separate mechanisms, i.e. the smell or flavor is perceived as a global fingerprint. Essentially the instrument consists of the sensor array, pattern reorganization modules, and headspace sampling, to generate signal patterns that are used for characterizing smells. The general  block diagram is shown below :

Benefits of the Project

Food poisoning has been the source of innumerable diseases, to reduce and avoid illness we use biosensors and electrical sensors to determine the freshness of household food items like vegetables, dairy, fruits, and meat, etc.

Furthermore, the benefits of our project include a low-cost solution, empowering the food industry of Pakistan, a portable, easy to handle prototype, and providing opportunities to local industries to work on our prototype device.

Moreover, we also know that E-nose biomedical applications range from biochemical testing, blood compatibility, disease diagnoses, drug purity, monitoring metabolic levels, organ dysfunction, and telemedicine. Electronic noses are being widely used by some companies as a quality control instrument. Strengths include high sensitivity and correlation to human sensory panels for many applications. Providing opportunities to local industries to work on our prototype device.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The final deliverable consists of both hardware and software. The hardware part will consist of two parts, One is the processing unit and the other is the sensor array. The food to be checked is near to the corresponding sensor array, which will take the information reading of food freshness level and send it to the processing unit. The microcontroller takes readings from the sensor and decides the result with a predefined algorithm (in Processing Unit). Which will check the quality of food thoroughly and through the results, it will tell us what is the quality of food at that time.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

Food

Other Industries

Core Technology

Artificial Intelligence(AI)

Other Technologies

Sustainable Development Goals

Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-Being for People, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com