Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Kavya Bhandari
Prof. Siddharth Tallur
Urvidh Narula
TA: Mohammed Tulla
Sucheta Ravikanti
2 Introduction 2
2.1 Background and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.2 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3 Design Alternatives 3
3.1 Ultrasonic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.2 Impedance Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.3 EM Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4 Project Implementation 4
4.1 Ultrasonic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.1.1 Block Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.1.2 Transmitter and Receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.1.3 Mechanical Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1.4 Challenges Faced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1.5 Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2 Capacitance Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2.1 Block Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2.2 Evolution of the Mechanical Setup and Challenges Faced . . 8
4.2.3 Taking Readings and Drying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2.4 Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5 Observations 13
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1 Abstract
The companies that manufacture coconut oil from the dried coconut meat (called
Copra) purchase coconuts in bulk quantities. This is followed by breaking them
open and drying them for around 6-7 days to remove the moisture from the meat.
The copra yields can be predicted only after this process. As a result, the compa-
nies go in great losses due to lower yields obtained. This project aims to resolve
this issue by developing a statistical relation between the non-invasive parameters
of the coconut and the eventual copra yield so it can be predicted at the time of
the purchase itself in a non-invasive sense.
2 Introduction
2.1 Background and Motivation
The project is inspired by a pressing need in the coconut oil industry for a portable,
non-invasive means of estimating the copra yield from a coconut during the time
of purchase itself. The main challenge in solving such a problem would be es-
tablishing a relationship between measurable parameters of the coconut through
non-invasive means, and the eventual copra yield.
Some relevant work has been done by Lilynorfesha Binti Mohd Shah on non-
invasive means of analysis of apples, in a paper on ’Instrumental and Ultrasonic
Techniques in Quality Evaluation of Fresh Fruit and Vegetables’. Another useful
paper is written by A. Mizrach and U. Flitsanov on ’Ultrasonic Device for Avo-
cado Shelf-Life Predicting and Maturity Detection’, highlighting the use of similar
techniques on avocados.
Modelling any physical parameter of a coconut proved to be very challenging We
expect coconuts to be more challenging due to the high level of non-uniformity
within, as well as the small thickness of the layer we wish to analyze.
2.2 Objectives
• To experiment and find the best set of non-invasive observable parameters
using non-invasive methods of testing, where the techniques such as ultra-
sonic waveform analysis and capacitance measurement were experimented
with.
• Establishing a statistical relation between the above chosen parameters and
the eventual copra yield.
2
3 Design Alternatives
There are multiple possible techniques of non-invasive analysis. The following are
some of the potential methods we have read/worked upon:
• The interference between the reflection of a single pulse off various layers of
the coconut could also give some information about the thickness and mois-
ture content of copra layer.
The common challenges which we have faced using this analysis will be dis-
cussed in the sections further.
• The exact setup and methods we have employed for this method will be
discussed in the sections further.
3.3 EM Waves
• Certain EM wavelengths are absorbed by certain substances (for eg, water
absorbs microwaves). This property can be exploited to observe the ab-
sorption spectrum of certain wavelength EM waves to see if there is some
relationship with copra yield.
• This sort of technology is known to work in other fields of the food indus-
try. According to VUB, IMEC & IBBT/UGent universities, this technology
can be used for monitoring the freezing state of food products and also for
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determination of moisture content in food products (moisture content might
be an important factor effecting copra yield).
4 Project Implementation
4.1 Ultrasonic Waves
The following sections will cover various things we have tried, the challenges faced
at every step and the observations.
This is a reference block diagram for future related projects.We were not able to
see this part of the project to its conclusion due to reasons discussed later and were
only able to develop a stable housing for the transmitter-receiver pair and circuits
for the transmitter and receiver side.
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Figure 2: Receiver circuit
Headphone Model:
5
We have developed a temporary housing using headphones for the ultrasonic sen-
sors to achieve uniformity while taking readings. This was done by drilling through
the earpieces of a narrow pair of headphones and securing the TR pair within them.
This housing firmly secures the sensors in place while allowing room for adjust-
ment. A picture of the same along with the TR circuits is shown in Figure 3
The earlier model had several issues such as feedthrough, low rigidity, low unifor-
mity in readings, but most importantly very low repeatability, pushing for a much
more robust and modular setup which was first designed on SolidWorks and then
given for printing. The assembly consists of several parts such as moving plates,
plank for holding the sensors, removable pegs accounting diverse shapes and sizes
of the coconut and a main U-Frame. A picture of the same is shown in Figure 4.
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• The major challenge we have faced was with the headphone setup not being
very rigid and closed which led to the phenomenon of feedthrough through
the tables and very unstable readings. The readings were observed to change
quite significantly with even a slight change in the positioning.
4.1.5 Readings
We have taken readings at the receiver end for various angles of TR pair, by holding
the sensors tightly against the coconut. One such waveform is shown in Figure 5.
We still haven’t acquired any waveforms using the new mechanical design.
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4.2 Capacitance Measurement
The coconuts were modelled as multi-layared dielectrics in series and we got very
promising results from our analysis and experimentation. The following sections
will cover our experimentts, the challenges faced at every step and our observa-
tions.
We have used the Precision LCR Meter available in the WEL Lab for taking
the capacitance measurements at various frequencies for all the coconuts. We
performed a frequency sweep from 20Hz to 2Mhz and collected all data which we
later analyzed for redundancies.
We saw this part of the project to completion, having completed the model building
and successfully predicted the copra yield upto some confidence limit for a few
coconuts.
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the plates. So we proceeded by drilling holes in the plates and clamping the wires
tightly onto them.
Another cause for concern was the drastic variations in readings upon rotation of
the coconut placed inside. Initially, the metal plates being used were not large
enough to capture the entire coconut and we felt that was the issue. So, we
got bigger plates and observed that even though the readings would change upon
rotation (which was expected due to the oblong shapes of coconuts in general), the
changes were not nearly as drastic as earlier.
The final setup which can be seen in the above image was robust and repeatable,
even though it wasn’t as automated as we would have liked.
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Other than capacitance and resistance measurements, certain physical parameters
were also measured for each coconut, namely : weight of coconut, volume and
weight of water present inside, average shell thickness, average copra
thickness, diameters along major and minor axes and height.
After this, the coconuts were dried in an oven for 1 day with the temperature
set at 70 degrees celsius. The copra separated from the shells and its weight for
each coconut was recorded thereafter.
• We found the shell thickness to be more or less uniform across coconuts and
hence, it should not a differentiating factor in terms of capacitance measure-
ment.
• The relative dielectric constant of water is 80, which is quite high as compared
to those of the shell and meat of the coconut. Since all these layers are in
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series, we theorize that there is negligible effect of the water present inside
the coconut on capacitance readings.
• We actually see that the coconut water present inside hardly has any corre-
lation with the capacitance readings which seems like a very positive sign for
this kind of research.
• The dimensions of the coconut will definitely have an impact on the capaci-
tance measurements.
• Intuitively, the height of the coconut seems like a relatively insignificant
factor in determining the capacitance, as the layer of air between the coconut
and the plates will be larger near the tips of the coconut, thereby causing it
to dominate the contribution of capacitance from that region.
• However, the geometric mean of the lengths of the axes along which capac-
itance is measured should have a significant effect on the measurement, as
a greater length would reduce the thickness of the layer of air between the
plates and the coconut as well as reducing the curvature of the coconut near
the plates, both of which would increase the capacitance of the coconut.
√
• In both the above arguments, d1 d2 will positively affect the capacitance.
√
Figure 9: Copra weight × d1 d2 vs Capacitance (Correlation coef = 0.775)
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• If the 4 clear outliers are removed, the correlation coef goes up to 0.94 which
is very promising.
• We tried to fit the significant parameters into an empirical model since the re-
lationship between these parameters are too complex to capture and measure
accurately in a mathematical model.
• Also, we went for a square root model and applied regression on that, as
visually, the graph seemed to be fitting a square root curve rather than a
linear curve. To avoid overfitting, we did not consider other powers like 0.1
instead of 0.5 (square root) which in fact, would have led to an even better
fit.
• The orange dots represent our model predictions, blue dots represent actual
data points according to measured data and the green dots are the outliers.
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5 Observations
• The amount of copra present in the coconut has a significant contribution
to the capacitance measurement of the coconut, and is one of the major
differentiating factors between coconuts affecting the measurement obtained.
• The mean diameter of the coconut plays a significant role in the capacitance
measurement, while the height of the coconut does not affect the capacitance
measurement for the most part.
• The capacitance of the coconut is small in magnitude and thus a large number
of precautions need to be taken in order to obtain accurate readings, including
electrostatic shielding of the entire measurement setup from the rest of the
world.
There is room to build upon our work done in this project in the following ways:
• The capacitance readings that have been taken currently are specific to the
environment created by us. The setup in which the coconut is placed in must
be standardized in order for different people to obtain uniform readings of
capacitance. Shielded wires should also be used to connect the measure-
ment setup to the remainder of the circuit to reduce the effect of parasitic
inductances of the wires.
• A mechanism can also be made to rotate the coconut by 90◦ within the
setup after a certain period of time and average the two capacitance mea-
surements, and measurement of the lengths of axes of the coconuts along
which capacitance is being measured can also be incorporated into the same
setup.
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• Currently, a precision LCR meter is being used to measure capacitance, which
is a bulky and expensive device. A cheaper and more portable circuit can
be developed to measure the capacitance of the setup. Frequency to Digital
ICs are a promising avenue for such a purpose.
Other possible alternative techniques for the yield estimation of copra are:
• While we did not work with microwaves during the course of this project,
we feel the absorption spectrum of a small range of microwave frequencies
would be related to the physical composition of the coconut and we may be
able to extract the yield of copra from it.
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