SMELLR -FOOD FRESHNESS DETECTION USING MACHINE LEARNING

Abstract

Food spoilage is a metabolic process that causes the food to be undesirable or unacceptable for human consumption due to changes in sensory characteristics. Excessive amount of foods are lost due to microbial spoilage even with modern day preservation techniques. Food safety remains a major concern worldwide. Consumption of high amount of pathogenic food may give rise to food borne illness. In order to manage and overcome this problem we present SMELLR, a simple, non-destructive and highly economical handheld device to detect the freshness of the food, through which the early stages of food spoilage can be accurately detected. Here we employ a C2H4 sensor, a microcontroller by which the amount of Ethylene gas emitted by the decayed food can be measured. The level of spoilage will be displayed through an LCD and given as voice note to the user. Using this device, presence of microorganisms can be non-invasively detected with high sensitivity.