Real-time banana freshness grading: A portable end-to-end detection system with high precision

To enhance the efficiency of banana quality management, an automated freshness grading system based on real-time image processing was developed. The system integrates a camera for image acquisition and employs portable edge devices (Nvidia Jetson Orin NX or Jetson TX2) to classify banana freshness i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Postharvest biology and technology Vol. 231; p. 113904
Main Authors: Chen, Liangyan, Zhu, Junkang, Gui, Yisong, Liu, Weihua, Zeng, Shan
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier B.V 01.01.2026
Subjects:
Fruit quality
Network algorithm
Non-destructive
YOLO
YOLO
AI
Network algorithm
Non-destructive
Fruit quality
ISSN:0925-5214
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:To enhance the efficiency of banana quality management, an automated freshness grading system based on real-time image processing was developed. The system integrates a camera for image acquisition and employs portable edge devices (Nvidia Jetson Orin NX or Jetson TX2) to classify banana freshness into four levels, displaying results along with confidence scores in real-time. A lightweight YOLO-based banana freshness detection method (YOLO-BFD), built on the YOLOv7-tiny framework, was designed to enable high-accuracy, real-time processing on edge devices. Key optimizations—including reduced model width factors, the LightSP module, VoVSSCSP, and Ghost convolutions—resulted in a 118.4 % increase in detection speed and a 1.4 % improvement in mean average precision (mAP) over the baseline, along with a 5 % increase in precision, 1.5 % increase in recall, and a 3 % increase in F1 score. Additionally, the system achieved a 93.5 % reduction in computational costs and a 41.9 % decrease in model parameters. The system demonstrated an average accuracy of 97.8 % in freshness grading, with real-time detection speeds of 61 frames per second on the Jetson Orin NX and 29 frames per second on the Jetson TX2. Overall, the proposed system provides a practical and efficient solution for portable banana quality assessment in agricultural applications. •The quality of bananas was assessed non-destructively using AI techniques.•A portable artificial intelligence grading and detection system was developed.•A lightweight detection network for real-detection was proposed.•A system for bananas classification after harvest is established.
ISSN:0925-5214
DOI:10.1016/j.postharvbio.2025.113904