On-line image processing for tobacco grading in Zimbabwe

The authors describe how research is currently being undertaken in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Zimbabwe in conjunction with the University of Bath with a view to automating the tobacco grading process. The objective of the research is to provide a reliable grading tool to the industry which will give a uniform grading standard across the country. In addition it is intended to increase throughput and provide quantification of the variation in tobacco leaf quality. The heart of the automatic grading system is a high-speed online image processing system developed to process images at a field rate of 50 Hz. The image processing is performed by Texas Instruments TMS 320-E-25 microprocessors operating in a parallel configuration.