A novel integrated system for real-time monitoring of tobacco leaf images in the bulk curing barn

Curing is the key stage to determine the quality and economic benefits of tobacco leaves, which directly determines the income of tobacco farmers and the quality of cigarette raw materials. Proper control of temperature and humidity based on the condition of tobacco leaves plays a decisive role during the curing process. However, the exiting researched are mainly focused on the monitor of temperature and humidity due to high temperature, high humidity and pure black environment in bulk curing barn. Here we designed a novel integrated system for real-time monitoring of tobacco leaf images, temperature and humidity during curing process. TEC semiconductor cooling module, fill light and corrosion-resistant sensor housing were designed in hardware and an image color optimization algorithm was embedded in software. A control experiment was conducted using the image sensor before improved to validate the availability and feasibility of the novel integrated system. The results showed that the novel system was feasible to acquire the real-time and high quality images of tobacco leaves during the whole curing process, and the $\Delta E$ of the images decreased from 20 to 10 when the novel integrated system was applied. These results proved that the novel integrated system developed in this study was able to monitor the images, temperature and humidity during whole curing process, which has distinct advantages and potential application in the future of tobacco production.