System Development for Detection of Pesticide in Apple

Traditional methods of pesticide detection in fruits and vegetables are time consuming and laborious. Real time, rapid and non-destructive detection of pesticide residue in fruits is current industrial desire. A semi-mechanized system was designed and fabricated to hold apple sample and rotate it at desired angle. The overall system included Raman system equipped with 785 nm laser light source and optical probe mounted in Charged Couple Device (CCD) and the sample holding device. A Programmable System on Chip (PSoC) was interfaced with stepper motor driver to control the rotation of apple. A simple Graphical Users Interface (GUI) was developed to control the overall system including the CCD camera. The sample holding device could clamp the apple of varying shape and size. The device was also able to rotate the sample at prescribed angle and delay time. Raman spectral data were collected from different points of clean apple surface to analyze the performance of the semi-mechanized system. The results show that the GUI developed in this research was able to control the overall system during the experiment. The result of the experiment is encouraging to perform further research to develop a mechanized system to detect pesticide and its concentration in wholesome apple surface in real time application.