Fast detection of moisture content and freshness for loquats using optical fiber spectroscopy

Abstract Detection of the moisture content (MC) and freshness for loquats is crucial for achieving optimal taste and economic efficiency. Traditional methods for evaluating the MC and freshness of loquats have disadvantages such as destructive sampling and time‐consuming. To investigate the feasibility of rapid and non‐destructive detection of the MC and freshness for loquats, optical fiber spectroscopy in the range of 200–1000 nm was used in this study. The full spectra were pre‐processed using standard normal variate method, and then, the effective wavelengths were selected using competitive adaptive weighting sampling (CARS) and random frog algorithms. Based on the selected effective wavelengths, prediction models for MC were developed using partial least squares regression (PLSR), multiple linear regression, extreme learning machine, and back‐propagation neural network. Furthermore, freshness level discrimination models were established using simplified k nearest neighbor, support vector machine (SVM), and partial least squares discriminant analysis. Regarding the prediction models, the CARS‐PLSR model performed relatively better than the other models for predicting the MC, with R 2 P and RPD values of 0.84 and 2.51, respectively. Additionally, the CARS‐SVM model obtained superior discrimination performance, with 100% accuracy for both calibration and prediction sets. The results demonstrated that optical fiber spectroscopy technology is an effective tool to fast detect the MC and freshness for loquats.