Recognition of Heat-Damaged Corn Seeds Based on Fusion of Laser Ultrasonic Signal and Infrared Image Features

Abstract

Corn is widely cultivated on a global scale. However, high temperatures during storage and transportation can lead to thermal damage to the kernels, negatively impacting their quality. Traditional methods for identifying heat-damaged grains primarily rely on manual inspection, which is characterized by low efficiency and accuracy. This study proposes a novel identification method that integrates laser ultrasonic signals with infrared image texture features. A pulsed laser stimulates the seeds to generate laser ultrasonic signals, while an infrared camera captures infrared images of the seeds. We extract time-domain, frequency-domain, and Hilbert-domain features from the laser ultrasonic signals, in addition to texture features from the infrared images. These features are combined using Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA). Subsequently, the fused features are classified using a Backpropagation (BP) neural network, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Particle Swarm Optimization–Support Vector Machine (PSO–SVM). The results indicate that the recognition rate achieved with the fused ‘signal-image’ features reaches 99.17%, providing a novel approach for detecting heat-damaged corn seeds.