Comparison of illuminations to identify wheat classes using monochrome images

Wheat class identification using machine vision is an objective method which can be used for online testing to automate handling, binning and shipping operations in grain industry. The efficiencies of a monochrome camera-based vision system with three different illuminations (incandescent light (IL), fluorescent ring light (FRL), fluorescent tube light (FTL)) were determined to identify eight western Canadian wheat classes at four moisture levels (11%, 14%, 17% and 20%). The monochrome images of the bulk wheat samples were acquired at each moisture level (3 illuminations x 8 classes x 4 moisture contents x 100 replications= 9600 images). A linear discriminant function was used for the classification of wheat samples using 32 graylevel textural features extracted from the monochrome images. The mean gray values of the wheat classes were in the ranges of 75-103, 73-115, and 107-143 for IL, FRL and FTL, respectively. The mean gray values of wheat classes were significantly different within each illumination and between different illuminations ((alpha = 0.05). Mean gray value was the highest for FTL and the lowest for IL illumination. The moisture content of the wheat samples had significant effect on the mean gray values. The overall classification accuracies were 90%, 81% and 96% for IL, FRL and FTL, respectively, when all the wheat classes were at the same moisture levels. It was 66%, 53% and 85% for IL, FRL and FTL, respectively, when the wheat classes were at different moisture levels. The classification accuracies of a 2-stage classification system for the classes with different moisture levels were 68%, 56% and 90% for IL, FRL and FTL, respectively. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.