Portable-Mechanical-Sampler System for Real-Time Monitoring and Predicting Soybean Quality in the Bulk Transport

During transport, the grains can deteriorate and lose quality due to the increase in their metabolic activity. Thus, it is suggested that the monitoring of the intergranular variables and the prediction of the grain mass quality can collaborate in the decision-making about the time of transport and unloading. Therefore, equipment comprising a mechanical-portable sampler with a hardware device and DHT22 and MHZ-14 sensors was proposed in this study for the real-time monitoring of the temperature, relative humidity (RH), and carbon dioxide (CO2) of the intergranular air, with advantages about others technologies, since it is possible to predict the physical quality of soybean mass during bulk transport. In addition, the equipment allows sampling of the grain mass in the profile to analyze its quality on the laboratory to prove the results obtained in the monitoring and prediction. The equipment was developed using low-cost materials, sensors, and components and tested in the laboratory and at a full scale. The system was validated by comparing the results of the indirect measurement with those of the grain quality analyses. Thus, the equipment can be applied for the monitoring of bulk grain transport to avoid quantitative and qualitative losses and to collaborate in the field of food safety and post-harvest logistics.