Machine Learning Applied to Near-Infrared Spectra for Chicken Meat Classification

Identification of chicken quality parameters is often inconsistent, time-consuming, and laborious. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been used as a powerful tool for food quality assessment. However, the near-infrared (NIR) spectra comprise a large number of redundant information. Determining wavelengths relevance and selecting subsets for classification and prediction models are mandatory for the development of multispectral systems. A combination of both attribute and wavelength selection for NIR spectral information of chicken meat samples was investigated. Decision Trees and Decision Table predictors exploit these optimal wavelengths for classification tasks according to different quality grades of poultry meat. The proposed methodology was conducted with a support vector machine algorithm (SVM) to compare the precision of the proposed model. Experiments were performed on NIR spectral information (1050 wavelengths), colour (CIEL∗a∗b∗, chroma, and hue), water holding capacity (WHC), and pH of each sample analyzed. Results show that the best method was the REPTree based on 12 wavelengths, allowing for classification of poultry samples according to quality grades with 77.2% precision. The selected wavelengths could lead to potential simple multispectral acquisition devices.