LAUSR

Abstract. The production of edible bird’s nest (EBN) is an important income-generating agricultural activity in Malaysia. However, cleanliness inspection during EBN production poses certain difficulties due to issues such as labor dependency, human error, and inconsistency. Automated inspection remains a challenging task as there is no effective algorithm for impurities segmentation. Impurities, such as feathers, have similar color properties as EBN, making segmentation difficult due to the low contrast between the two features. We propose and demonstrate an experimental design-based lighting solution for improving the contrast ratio between the impurities and EBN in a scientific and systematic way. Lighting parameters, such as the configuration, angle, wavelength, and intensity of lighting, are investigated using a full factorial experimental design. The contrast ratio between the impurities and the EBN is chosen as the response variable in the experimental design. The main effects plot of the lighting parameters is obtained to identify the most optimal lighting parameters. The optimal lighting setup yields an improvement of 36.2%, with a contrast ratio of 0.79, compared to the normal fluorescent lighting setup, which has a contrast ratio of 0.58. This improvement would produce distinct intensity regions for impurities and EBN within an EBN image, therefore facilitating the segmentation operation.