Rapid Identification of Dendrobium Species Using Near-Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging Technology

Dendrobium officinale is a valuable Chinese medicinal herb, but distinguishing it from other Dendrobium species after processing is challenging, leading to low classification accuracy and time-consuming analysis. This study proposes a rapid classification model based on near-infrared hyperspectral imaging (NIR-HSI), incorporating data preprocessing and feature wavelength selection. Five Dendrobium species—D. officinale, D. aphyllum, D. chrysanthum, D. fimbriatum, and D. thyrsiflorum—were used. Spectral preprocessing techniques like normalization and smoothing were applied, and Support Vector Machine (SVM) models were constructed. Normalization improved both accuracy and stability, with the full-spectrum Normalize-SVM model achieving 97% accuracy for calibration and 88% for prediction. D. chrysotoxum performed best, with all metrics reaching 100%, while D. aphyllum had poor classification (40% recall and 51.74% F1 score). To improve efficiency and performance, feature wavelength selection was performed using Competitive Adaptive Reweighted Sampling (CARS) and Successive Projections Algorithm (SPA). The CARS-Normalize-SVM model yielded the best results: 98% accuracy for calibration and 96% for prediction, improving by 1% and 8%, respectively. D. aphyllum’s classification also improved significantly, with a 100% recall rate and 95.24% F1 score. These findings highlight hyperspectral imaging’s potential for rapid Dendrobium species identification, supporting future quality control and market supervision.