Prediction of banana quality indices from color features using support vector regression

•Firmness, TSS, TA and pH of the banana during shelf-life were measured.•Correlation between color features and quality indices were investigated.•SVR–rbf was chosen as the best model for prediction of quality indices.

Banana undergoes significant quality indices and color transformations during shelf-life process, which in turn affect important chemical and physical characteristics for the organoleptic quality of banana. A computer vision system was implemented in order to evaluate color of banana in RGB, L*a*b* and HSV color spaces, and changes in color features of banana during shelf-life were employed for the quantitative prediction of quality indices. The radial basis function (RBF) was applied as the kernel function of support vector regression (SVR) and the color features, in different color spaces, were selected as the inputs of the model, being determined total soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity and firmness as the output. Experimental results provided an improvement in predictive accuracy as compared with those obtained by using artificial neural network (ANN).

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