Evaluation of the Internal Quality of Agricultural Products using Acoustic Vibration Techniques

Evaluation of the quality of agricultural products is important because this is the basis for consumer purchases. Consumers may evaluate products on the basis of factors such as fragrance, appearance, and hardness. Texture is one of the most important factors, especially as an indication of freshness. For agricultural products that ripen after harvest, the degree of ripeness is an important factor for optimum edibility. Ripeness evaluation ideally needs to be nondestructive. Various methods have been proposed to evaluate food texture and the nondestructive evaluation of fruit ripeness. This paper reviews such methods and recent developments, focusing on those that use acoustic vibration techniques.