Photogrammetric Grading of Oil Palm Fresh Fruit Bunches

Conventional grading of oil palm Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) is still currently manually carried out in palm oil producing industries. The most critical part of the grading process is the categorization of the oil palm fruit bunches according to their ripeness. This paper presents a computer assisted photogrammetric methodology which correlates the color of the palm oil fruits to their ripeness and eventually sorts them out physically. The methodology consists of five main phases, i.e. image acquisition, image pre-processing, image segmentation, calculation of color Digital Numbers (DN) and finally the classification of the fresh fruit bunches according to their ripeness. The software and hardware essentials for the implementation of the methodology have been developed and tested. The design of system is geared towards four main characteristics: (i) affordable in comparison to the labor cost in palm oil mills, (ii) reliable grading process equivalent to the task carried out by a skilled grader, (iii) sufficiently robust to withstand the oil palm mill environment without human intervention and (iv) synergistic integration of hardware and software systems. The system and the methodology formulated in this work have developed a complete automation grading system of oil palm FFB and thus drastically increased the grading