| Color of dried chilies is one of the most key factors that influences consumers’ preference. It is mainly affected by the drying process. Traditionally, drying temperature is fixed during the drying process without regard to the quality of chilies being dried. Thus, the aim of this research is to develop a controller for the chili drying process that determines the drying temperature according to the change of chili color. To measure the chili color, we built a hot air tray dryer incorporated with a computer vision system which measures the chili color during drying. We converted the RGB color model to the L*a*b* color model and calculated the change of the a* component (\delta a). If \delta a within 15 minutes was less than 2, then, the drying temperature... |
