Design and Development of a Portable Firmness Penetrometer with Real – Time Graphical Display for Agricultural Produce
Main Article Content
Abstract
A prototype of a portable firmness penetrometer was designed and developed to achieve performance comparable to high-cost standard instruments through consistent control of speed, angle, and depth of penetration. The operation of various systems of the device, including motors, distance measurement, force measurement, data recording, and wireless connection via Bluetooth, is controlled via a microcontroller. The prototype, weighing 3 kg, can measure firmness value up to 90 N and provides real-time measurement displayed as a force–displacement graph via a mobile application and stores data on a memory card. The crosshead speed was evaluated under resistive loads applied at the probe tip ranging from 0 to 90 N, and a reduction in speed from 29.87 to 29.15 mm/min was observed. To evaluate the performance of the prototype against the Universal Testing Machine (UTM), firmness values measured by the prototype and the UTM were compared against reference values obtained from the UTM to determine error. The test samples used in this study included Fuji apples, Granny Smith apples, and winter melons using Fuji apples, Granny Smith apples, and wax gourd as test samples for firmness measurement. The prototype showed average errors of 1.35, 1.15, and 2.26 N for Fuji apples, Granny Smith apples, and wax gourd, respectively, and the UTM showed average errors of 1.32, 1.15, and 2.14 N for Fuji apples, Granny Smith apples, and wax gourd, respectively. Statistical analysis using a paired sample t-test showed no significant difference in measurement error between the prototype and the UTM at a 95% confidence level for all three sample types.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
King Mongkut's Agricultural Journal
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