Abstract
Food and drink is the largest manufacturing sector worldwide and has significant environmental impact in terms of resource use, emissions, and waste. However, food and drink manufacturers are restricted in addressing these issues due to the tight profit margins they operate within. The advances of two industrial digital technologies, sensors and machine learning, present manufacturers with affordable methods to collect and analyse manufacturing data and enable enhanced, evidence-based decision making. These technologies will enable manufacturers to reduce their environmental impact by making processes more flexible and efficient in terms of how they manage their resources. In this article, a methodology is proposed that combines online sensors and machine learning to provide a unified framework for the development of intelligent sensors that work to improve food and drink manufacturers' resource efficiency problems. The methodology is then applied to four food and drink manufacturing case studies to demonstrate its capabilities for a diverse range of applications within the sector. The case studies included the monitoring of mixing, cleaning and fermentation processes in addition to predicting key quality parameter of crops. For all case studies, the methodology was successfully applied and predictive models with accuracies ranging from 95 to 100% were achieved. The case studies also highlight challenges and considerations which still remain when applying the methodology, including efficient data acquisition and labelling, feature engineering, and model selection. This paper concludes by discussing the future work necessary around the topics of new online sensors, infrastructure, data acquisition and trust to enable the widespread adoption of intelligent sensors within the food and drink sector.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-5-2021
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.642786
Funding Information
This work was supported by the Innovate UK projects 103936 and 132205 and EPSRC projects EP/P001246/1, EP/S036113/1, and EP/R513283/1.
Related Content
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Repository Citation
Watson, Nicholas J.; Bowler, Alexander L.; Rady, Ahmed; Fisher, Oliver J.; Simeone, Alessandro; Escrig, Josep; Woolley, Elliot; and Adedeji, Akinbode A., "Intelligent Sensors for Sustainable Food and Drink Manufacturing" (2021). Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications. 247.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/bae_facpub/247
Included in
Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering Commons, Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, v. 5, article 642786.
© 2021 Watson, Bowler, Rady, Fisher, Simeone, Escrig, Woolley and Adedeji
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