Prototypes of E-Nose, E-Vision and E-Tongue Systems for Measuring the Quality of Tea Handed Over to the Industry by Deity for Mass Production and Proliferation

Introduction

Shri J. Satyanarayana, Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) , Ministry of Communications and IT, here today formally handed over some very innovative products called ‘ENOVision’ and ‘ETongue’ for Tea to the industry for mass production and proliferation. The Department funds research, innovation and productization of cutting edge technologies through its institutions like Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC). CDAC, Kolkata has developed production worthy prototypes of E-Nose, E-Vision and E-Tongue systems for rapid and objective measurement of quality of tea. M/S Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd , Hyderabad and M/S Electronics Research and Development Enterprise Ltd, Kolkata have been selected as the Technology partners to take the technologies to the market for rapid spread of the lab-grown innovation amongst the industrial users in the domain of tea ,rice and other agro produce. 

The technology has been developed through funding of DeitY under the National Program For Perception Engineering (NPPE) as well as funding from many other bodies like Tea Board , Tea Research Association (TRA) , Department of Science and Technology (DST) etc. 

This Technology Transfer marks the success of scientific research by CDAC in the area of Perception Engineering, which involves adaptation, integration and fusion of technologies like chemical sensing, digital image processing and well-designed electronics. The technology so developed is being customized for quality evaluation of agro produce like rice, chilly, turmeric etc and also in the sericulture area. Taking cues from the human sniffing process, the E-Nose for tea was innovated. The E-Vision system further quantifies the quality by objectively measuring colour, granular dimension, blackness and fiber content within tea bulks by innovations in digital image analysis techniques. The E-Tongue system carries out taste (astringency) measurement of tea liquor by electrochemical analysis of the samples. 

Source

Press Information Bureau, February 27, 2014