The principle of operation of the sensor is based on the presence of individual spectral features of each substance. The most vivid of these features are manifested in the middle IR spectrum area. Obtaining experimental data from this range is a technically difficult task requiring costly and cumbersome equipment. However, the use of data analysis algorithms allows the extraction of the required data from the near IR range and even from the photos of the substance. The equipment used for such a task is considerably cheaper and compact. Thus, a sensor capable of extracting the desired information from the near IR range is a perspective device. The sensor itself consists of three main elements - spectrometer, cloud storage, and data processing algorithm. The sensor allows to determine quality (freshness) and taste characteristics (level of sugar, acidity, etc.) of both solid and liquid food products. In addition, the sensor allows the analysis of products placed in transparent packaging.
The spectrum of reflection of food products is initially measured. An ordinary incandescent bulb (or LED bulbs) is used as the source of radiation. The resulting spectrum is sent to the cloud storage where it is processed using the WiFi module. A step-by-step processing algorithm is used – primary processing is carried out by the main component method, its result is fed to the input of classification trees, which allows to distinguish the peculiarity (the same taste characteristic) for each The product being analyzed.