A Non-invasive Method to Measure the Sweetness of Malaysian Papaya Quantitatively Using NIR Full-transmittance Technique - A Preliminary Study

The fruit industry requires rapid, economical, and non destructive method for classifying fruits by internal quality. This research studied the development of a non destructive method that would enable consumers and producers to assess the maturity of papayas rapidly. Near Infra Red Spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to assess total Soluble Solid Content (SSC). A device consisting of infrared receiver sensor was developed to receive the infrared wavelength and a circuit was constructed to convert this reading into voltage. Fuzzy logic was applied as a decision support system to classify the sweetness of Malaysian papayas. The selected papayas were classified with two different categories which was ripe and unripe. Evaluation from the developed FIS scheme was compared with the results obtained from the refractometer which is in term of %Brix. It was found that the voltage obtained is proportional to the % Brix.