Non-invasive method and apparatus for screening high-quality seeds

摘要

Disclosed is a method and apparatus for the non-invasive selection of high-quality seeds, based on optical coherence tomography, by which pathogen-infected and pathogen-free seeds can be discriminated in a non-invasive manner. The apparatus is operated by the processes of scanning a seed of diagnostic interest in a non-invasive manner using an optical coherence tomographic unit; processing interference signals of the scanned tomographic images to produce tomographic image data of the seed of diagnostic interest; analyzing the tomographic image data; comparing the analyzed tomographic image data with preset reference tomographic image data; diagnosing the seed of diagnostic interest as a pathogen-infected or pathogen-free seed according to the comparison data; and selecting high-quality seeds according to the diagnosis data. It can screen high-quality seeds with rapidity, convenience, and accuracy at a low cost and is industrially applicable, making a great contribution to agricultural quarantine inspection.

主权项

1. An apparatus for non-invasive selection of high-quality seeds, comprising:
an optical tomographic unit for scanning seeds of diagnostic interest in a non-invasive manner to produce a tomographic image and generating an interference signal of the tomographic image; a signal processor for processing the interference signal generated from the optical tomographic unit by performing DC filtering, envelope detection, and digital conversion to generate tomographic image data of the seeds of diagnostic interest; a diagnostic unit for determining whether the seeds of diagnostic interest are pathogen-infected seeds or pathogen-free seeds by analyzing tomographic structures of the seeds of diagnostic interest through the tomographic image data generated by the signal processor and comparing the analyzed tomographic image data with preset reference tomographic image data, and for generating diagnosis data, wherein, the diagnostic unit diagnoses the seeds of diagnostic interest as pathogen-infected seeds if there is a layer in the analyzed tomographic structure and if the analyzed tomographic image data and the reference tomographic image data are not coincident with each other, and as pathogen-free seeds if there is no layer in the analyzed tomographic structure and if the tomographic image data generated by the signal processor and the reference tomographic image data are coincident with each other; and a selection unit for discriminating pathogen-infected and pathogen-free seeds to select high-quality seeds by sorting out the pathogen-infected seeds from the pathogen-free seeds according to the diagnosis data.