Embedded E-nose Application to Sense the Food Grain Storage Condition
Neha Deshpande and A. D. Shaligram
Department of Electronic Science,
University of Pune,
Pune: 411007, India
e-mail: neha.d68@gmail.com ,
ads@electronics.unipune.ernet,in
B. A. Botre, Satish Bindal and S.S . Sadistap
AEG, Central Electronics Engineering Research
Institute, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR), CEERI, Pilani, Rajasthan: 333031, India
e-mail: bbotre@gmail.com ,
sss@ceeri.ernet.in
Abstract— With increased demand for food quality and health
benefits, need for stringent scrutiny on the inspection of agri-
food products have become mandatory. In Indian agriculture,
the next challenge is to provide an effective, safe viable storage
and handling methods particularly in unpredictable weather
conditions. This can be done by using appropriate sensors and
system to maintain environmental and storage parameters at
predefined level by monitoring of the storage space. The paper
presents the application of E-nose system along with smart
embedded sensor system to study the deterioration of food
grains under different stress (temperature, humidity, insects
etc.) and room environmental conditions. The food grain
conditions are artificially generated and the effects are studied
with Į- Fox 2000 e-nose system. In order to analyze the data of
rice, millet, wheat, jawar under different stress conditions, we
performed different analysis viz, Principal Component
Analysis & Discriminant Factorial Analysis on the acquired E-
nose data and results obtained are also presented.
Keywords- wireless, food grain warehouse, embedded systems,
sensors, electronic nose.
I. INTRODUCTION
Preservation of the wholesomeness or the quality
characters of a food grain commodity is the basic aim of safe
storage. The storage of food grains is a complex function of
ecological systems comprising of physical, chemical and
biological variables. Important variables such as temperature,
moisture, oxygen, mites affect grain and its quality. These
variables seldom act alone or all at once, rather interact in
groups among themselves. When these relationships get
disturbed due to unfavorable conditions or defective
practices, spoilage occurs. In the present context of sufficient
food production in the country, the scientific storage is of
paramount importance [1-3]. Temperature and moisture are
two main abiotic factors in safe storage of food grains. The
effects of these two variables in food grain storage are
interrelated.
The electronic nose consists of array of metal oxide
semiconductor gas sensor, sensor data digitization, feature
selection and pattern recognition for the discrimination of
samples or items based on odor data [4]. The electronic nose
has been used in various other industries such as medicine,
environment monitoring, safety & security at airports, space
exploration by odor detection and robotics for finding
hazardous chemicals. Electronic noses are finding wide
range of applications in analyzing food items, their quality
inspection and processing monitoring [5-8]. Considering the
wide potential applications of electronic nose tool, the paper
presents the application of E-nose system along with smart
embedded sensor system to study the deterioration of food
grains under different stress (temperature, humidity, insects
etc.) and room environmental conditions.
The food grain conditions are artificially generated and
the effects are studied with e-nose system present at Agri-
Electronics Group, CEERI Pilani. In existing sensing
chamber of E-nose module available, it is not possible to
directly monitor temperature and humidity of the grain under
study. We modified the sensing chamber lid of E-nose
system so as to monitor temperature as well as humidity of
different grains under different conditions along with the
head space data. Smart embedded sensor system along with
wireless connectivity developed by AEG, CEERI is used to
monitor room temperature gradient and humidity conditions.
Further in order to analyze the data of rice, millet, wheat,
jawar, red gram dal under different stress conditions, we
performed different analysis viz. Principal Component
Analysis & Discriminant Factorial Analysis on the acquired
E-nose data.
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
In our work we have used the e-nose ‘Į- Fox 2000’.
Different grains such as rice, wheat, red gram dal, great
millet and bulrush millet were used for testing at various
conditions such as different temperatures, moisture content,
pest infected, with foreign material and in simple glass
container as well as in ‘bori’ (sac). Humidity sensor SY HH
220 was used to measure humidity of grain and temperature
of grain is measured using sensor LM35. PIC
microcontroller embedded system board is used to interface
these sensors with PC [9-11].
When the e-nose is set in the Gas mode, no internal carrier
gas flows through the injector and over the solid sorbent trap
during the sample time. The internal pump draws gas
samples into the instrument through the sample inlet and into
the trap. There are various sensors in the system that sense
different components of gases in the head space generated
above the grain sample. This data is further analyzed by the
e-nose. Thus original clean dry fresh grain sample data is
recorded and then the variations in the grain conditions are
recorded. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and
Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA) clearly show the
differentiation in these states. While working on this system
2010 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Communication Systems
978-0-7695-4254-6/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/CICN.2010.120
608
2010 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Communication Networks
978-0-7695-4254-6/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/CICN.2010.120
608