ABSTRACT Kelp is a vital marine economic crop, yet traditional natural sun‐drying and hot‐air drying methods commonly suffer from low drying efficiency, significant process fluctuations, and inconsistent product quality. To address these shortcomings, this paper proposes an intelligent kelp drying and packaging system integrating 5G and infrared array technology based on a suspended platform. This system integrates infrared array heating, multi‐point temperature and humidity sensing, and 5G remote transmission and control capabilities, enabling real‐time monitoring and dynamic adjustment of the drying environment. The study systematically investigated the effects of infrared power and air velocity on kelp drying kinetics, heat flux distribution, temperature‐humidity evolution, and quality preservation, employing the Page model for process fitting analysis. Results indicate that under optimal operating conditions (infrared power 1.2 kW/m 2 , air velocity 3 m/s), the system maintains stable drying temperatures between 55°C and 62°C while reducing relative humidity from ~80% to 20%–30%. The Page model achieved an excellent fit with R 2 = 0.987 and RMSE = 0.019. Under these conditions, kelp rehydration rates remained high while overall color difference was controlled within ΔE < 6.5. Compared with conventional hot‐air drying, drying time was reduced from 48 h to 6 h, representing an ~8‐fold efficiency improvement. The findings demonstrate the system's significant potential for enhancing kelp drying efficiency, quality stability, process automation, and remote monitoring capabilities, providing engineering references for intelligent drying processing of kelp and similar marine agricultural products. This work will conduct in situ calibration of radiation flux, energy consumption analysis, and economic evaluation, while also performing pilot‐scale validation to support industrial applications.
Song et al. (Wed,) studied this question.