The next time you bite into an apple you may ask yourself, “I wonder how the farmers know the exact time to pick the fruit.” The answer may be through the use of laser technologies. Researchers have developed technologies that allow for the harvesting of specific fruits including apples, pears, bananas and tomatoes. This laser technology may be making its way into the hands of farmers and this will allow them to know the exact, precise moment when fruits or vegetables have reached “peak edibleness.”
The technology involves using coherent light patterns, laser beams and CMOS or CCD cameras with custom optical lenses to help capture and record the fruits’ speckle pattern. It is the “biospeckle” that is detected with the laser that detects the optimal time to pick and eat the fruit. Is this technology truly necessary and will the consumer notice? Researchers explain that fruits are separated into two categories: climacteric or nonclimacteric. Climacteric fruits will continue to mature while on the vine or the tree. A specific level of ethylene – emitted from the mature fruit – lets researchers know when the fruit has reached maturity. Once it goes past this peak, it begins to degrade at the cell level and becomes prone to fungal invasion.
Researcher tapped into the fruits’ “biospeckle activity, generated by illuminating a biological medium with coherent light,” as a way to determine when the fruit should be picked. A digital camera records the speckle pattern on the fruit while laser beams and polarizers illuminate and test it. The process is both simple and ultimately will be low cost which may make it affordable for fruit farmers.
The way it works is that the laser lights interact through the fruit and it creates a speckle pattern. The groups of speckle grains will show changes over time and maturation of the fruit. After the initial speckle pattern is gathered and analyzed, future readings will be gathered and analyzed until the fruit reaches optimal maturation and is ready for consumption.
The ultimate hope for this laser technology is that it will eventually be developed into a portable device that farmers will be able to use as a way to noninvasively determine the best time to harvest fruits.
UKA Optics is a manufacturer of standard and custom CCTV lens assemblies for image capture, barcode scanning, night vision systems, medical systems, hi-speed imaging, machine vision and robotics vision.