Unsound kernel identification using linear colour charge-coupled device.

Wheat is one of the most consumed grains in the world. The identification of wheat based on surface characteristics is important for the market. This study is aimed at identifying unsound kernels (Triticum durum Desf), including 710 black germ kernels, 627 broken kernels and 1169 sound kernels from several seed distributors in China. The system is mainly composed of a liner charge-coupled device for image capture and a software package for extracting various morphological, colour and texture features. The models built by partial least squares discriminate analysis, support vector machine discrimination analysis (SVMDA) and principal component analysis-artificial neural networks for identifying the unsound kernels have been explored. After comparisons of these three methods, it has been found that SVMDA got the best accuracy: 95.1%, 96.0% and 98.3% (black germ kernels, broken kernels and sound kernels). Obviously, the experimental results have shown that SVMDA is the most feasible and effective choice for the identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]