INSTRUMENTATION AND COMPUTER CONTROL IN

FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRY

15EI609-TECHNICAL SEMINAR II

TECHNICAL SEMINAR REPORT

Submitted by

AUDITHAN S B (171EI112)

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND

INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERING

BANNARI AMMAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

(An Autonomous Institution Affiliated to Anna University, Chennai)

SATHYAMANGALAM-638401

APRIL 2020
i
 BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

Certified that this project report “INSTRUMENTATION AND

COMPUTER CONTROL IN FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRY” is the
bonafide work of “AUDITHAN S B (171EI112)” who carried out the technical
seminar work under my supervision.

SIGNATURE SIGNATURE

Dr.C.GANESH BABU Mrs.M.KALAIYARASI

HEAD OF THE SUPERVISOR
DEPARTMENT
Professor & Head Assistant Professor
Department of EIE, Department of EIE,
Bannari Amman Institute of Bannari Amman Institute of
Technology, Technology,
Sathyamangalam-638401 Sathyamangalam-638401

Submitted for the viva voce examination held on............

INTERNAL EXAMINER EXTERNAL EXAMINER

 ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to enunciate hearty thanks to our esteemed Chairman

Dr.S.V.Balasubramaniam, and the respected Director
Dr.M.P.Vijayakumar, for providing excellent facilities and support
during the course of study in this institute.
We are grateful to Dr. C.GANESH BABU, Head of the Department,
Electronics and Instrumentation engineering for his valuable suggestions to
carry out the project work successfully.
We wish to express our sincere thanks to Faculty guide
Mrs.M.KALAIYARASI, Assistant Professor, Electronics and
Instrumentation Engineering for his constructive ideas, inspirations,
encouragement, excellent guidance and much needed technical support
extended to complete our project work.
We wish to express our sincere thanks to Mr.ARUNJAYAKAR.S
Professor Incharge for his constructive ideas, inspiration, encouragement and
much needed technical support extended to complete our project work.
We would like to thank our friends, family, faculty members and non-
teaching staff who have directly and indirectly contributed to the success of
this project.
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ABSTRACT

Food processing plays a major role in our day today life. In United States
approximately one-seventh of the total sales volume is dedicated to food
production. The growth rate of food production is three times than that of the
population growth rate. This dissimilarity leads to the industrial expansion
which also leads to increase in cost. A decline in earnings has existed
traditionally in food processing industries. But our motive is to increase the food
production rate at lower cost by introducing new advanced techniques. It has
been found that instrumentation and computer control are the major tools that
can be installed in food processors to increase food production at minimal cost.
Moreover they have proven to be the cost reduction techniques. The applications
that have been installed in food processors are: i. energy conservation computer
control, ii. Food preparation and cooking computer control, iii. Food moisture,
drying and dehydration computer control. The factors influencing
instrumentation and computer control are increase in labour productivity,
equipment productivity, reduce in energy usage, cost per ton of production,
rejection rates per ton of production, higher production value, sales volume,
reduction of interest rates.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTE TITLE PAGE NO

R NO
ABSTRACT iv
LIST OF FIGURES vi

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2

3 METHODOLOGY 3
3.1 ENERGY CONSERVATION 3
COMPUTER CONTROL IN FOOD

PROCESSING PLANTS
3.2 FOOD PREPARATION AND COOKING 5
COMPUTER CONTROL
3.2.1 FOOD PREPARATION 5
3.2.2 FOOD COOKING 6
3.3 FOOD MOISTURE, DRYING AND 7
DEHYDRATION COMPUTER CONTROL
4 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION 9

5 CONCLUSION 10
REFERENCES 11
v
 LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE TITLE PAGE

NO NO

3.1 Computer control of a food processing plant requires 3

the instrumentation of numerous variables

3.2 Computer controls conserve energy in food plants 4
3.3 Computer controls improve productivity in food plants 6
Manual control leaves this process temperature off-
3.4 7
specification for more than 15 min
Computer control leaves the same process temperature
3.5 7
(off-specification for less than 2 min)
3.6 Vegetable-drying process 9

vi

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Instrumentation and computer control are the major tools for improving
productivity at minimal costs in food processing industries. The measurement of
flow, level, pressure, temperature, speed, moisture and color are necessary for
computerized food processing control. The conventional instruments like
mixing tank levels, storage bin levels, holding tank levels, cooking stage
temperatures, drying stage temperatures, conveyor belt speeds, mixing screw
speeds, gas pressures, fuel pressures, water flows, and mixture flows. The
computer control systems have been interfaced to food processing laboratory
and the test data are fed through manual or direct entry. The test data includes
the measurement of variables like solids contents, sugar contents, insolubles,
flavour and sulphide concentration of food. It helps in on-line measurements
and this has been enhanced by the use of computers to support sensor elements
with computation algorithms. Moisture measurement plays a major role in food
processing. The calibration of moisture is influenced by factors like temperature
and material composition. The computerized measurements has many
advantages like easy implementation of mathematical models, compensation
from sensors are economical.

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
V. Vijayaragavan et al. published a paper on “pH automation in sugar
industries”. In sugar production, pH neutralization is most important to
 enhance the edibility of sugar.  To control pH in order to enhance edibility of
sugar using the flow of MOL and surface fitting methodology was opted in
this paper.
T. Gayathri Devi et al. published a paper on “Machine vision based
quality analysis of rice grains”. In machine vision based testing, we take both
physical (grain shape and size) and chemical characteristics (amylose
content, gel consistency) for evaluation and grading of rice grains. 
R. Davies et al. published a paper on “VIP3D-an application of image
processing technology for quality control in food industry”. This paper
focuses on the problems encountered and the machine vision solutions
developed, to obtain accurate 3-D measurements of the different types and
sizes of loaves produced.
M. Saliba et al. published a paper on “Instrumentation issues in the
handling of fish for automated processing”. In this system, a fish on a
moving conveyor is imaged by a charge coupled device (CCD) camera. The
image is processed for feature recognition and a v-cut is performed for the
head-removal operation. 
Pierre Payeur et al. published a paper on “Automated tuning of a vision-
based inspection system for industrial food manufacturing”. This research
integrates machine learning techniques in the process to automate the initial
tuning of real-time vision-based inspection systems for bakery products.

CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
Instrumentation and computer control has been installed in various
applications like i. energy conservation computer control, ii. Food preparation
and cooking computer control, iii. Food moisture, drying and dehydration
computer control. The above methods will give higher rate of food production at
minimal cost of industrial expansion.
3.1Energy Conservation Computer Control in Food Processing
Plants
It can be achieved by boiler pressure and steam control, burner fuel
and combustion control, fuel consumption recording and coordination control
heat and power demand controls. The boiler pressure and steam control provides
control of master steam control, firing rate control, master boiler control, feed
water and drum level control. The boiler must follow the plant in its demand for
steam.

Fig.3.1 Computer control of a food processing plant requires the

instrumentation of numerous variables
The boiler control system must satisfy the changes in load due to different food
processing operations. The fuel flow and combustion air are controlled ensured
by burner fuel and combustion control at proper firing rate to generate steam
needed for plant production and maintain safe operations. The fuel consumption
recording and coordination control utilizes the available food processing surge
capacity to optimize food plant fuel economy. The food processor’s energy
depends on: power consumed by the processor and power not consumed by the
processor but generated by processor’s own equipment for reserves to meet
short-term peak loads. Demand control is implemented by establish from food
processing plant’s economies, to install an instrumentation and computer control
to monitor usage, design and program into this system predictive equation that
will forecast short and long-term demand, compute cost and availability factors.

Fig.3.2 Computer controls conserve energy in food plants

3.2 Food Preparation and Cooking Computer Control

3.2.1 Food preparation
It has a wide range of applications like fruit package which improve
productivity at minimal cost. Fruit packaging involves unloading to washers,
passing through pitters, peelers and inspection lines and culls are separated. The
type of packages for different fruit sizes have been chosen by preparation
control. As shipments are processed through the plant, the basis for making
decisions continually varies as a result of changes in the distributions of size,
percent solids, and sugar content of the fruit . Preparation control system
provides instrumented sugar analysis data for more precise control of
equilibrium sugar in the pack. It also reduces excess sugar in canneries. The
main objective of vegetable packing is to maximize value of pack which
includes paste, puree and juice. It should meet specifications like paste solids
content, puree solids content, sauce viscosity, flavourings and colour.
Vegetables vary in solids content from 4 to 8 percent. Products such as juice
would be processed instead of paste that requires water removal in evaporators
and that has a high removal of cost on low solids vegetables. For sauce
products, it is necessary to know that the vegetables come from growers in
varying degrees of pectin content and ability to thicken to required cooking
consistency. Some vegetables reach their final consistency at low evaporation.
Collecting an accurate data base on raw food products such as solids, sugar and
pectin in the food preparation control system is the way to save sugar,
processing time and cost. Vegetable peeling is another cost control application
which is achieved by using steam. Temperature, pressure and additives used to
achieve peeling are controlled.

3.2.2 Food cooking

Food cooking can be achieved with less waste and high efficiency using
instrumentation and computer control. Sliced food is conveyed into cookers and
monitored by cooking control system to determine the state of the materials.
Amount of materials, temperature and field properties are measured. The
cooking control system takes these factors into consideration and determines the
cooking retention time and the pressure and temperature of the product being
produced. It provides sampling and laboratory connection to determine product
temperature and other cooking and cooling standards which is very important in
food processing. The National Canner’s Association has developed a detailed
plan for improving process control in the canning industry.

Fig.3.3 Computer controls improve productivity in food plants

3.3 Food Moisture, Drying and Dehydration Computer Control
The American Dehydrated Onion and Garlic Association support the
computerized control of moisture, drying and dehydration. Using the computer
for implementation it is possible to take full advantage of all available process
measurements and to conveniently implement the most profitable profile
scheme. A total of 15min are required for a skilled plant operator to implement a
processing change requiring a 20 temperature move up and down. This computer
control is actual processing plant and is 7.5 times more efficient than best
performance of a skilled process operator.

Fig 3.4 Manual control leaves this process temperature off-specification for
more than 15 min

Fig 3.5 Computer control leaves the same process temperature (off-specification
for less than 2 min)

Modern computer control performance exceeds 99.5% availability.

Continuity measurement is one of the important aspects of computer control
system. The material in D-stage may or may not dry sufficiently and due to this
there is an average of 14 hour production loss. The on-line measurement reduces
production loss. The best way to implement computer control of moisture
around D-stage is to install moisture gauges before and after D-stage. If the
disturbance was generated before D-stage it would be recognized by inlet
moisture gauge and immediately drying rate would be increased in D-stage to
counteract the disturbance. In order to control both moisture and temperature
after a drying stage, the computer will manipulate both heat source flow rate and
ventilation air flow rate. The heat and air flow rate will influence temperature
and moisture contents. The implementation of two variable controls is
accomplished by the use of four control algorithms. Two of them for moisture
and temperature controllers and others perform interloop function. The
advantage of this non-interactive strategy is that it provides smooth changes for
a control variable and also prevents unwanted oscillations.

CHAPTER 4
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
In the analysis of vegetable drying process, the vegetables are fed after
washing and slicing to a series of drying stages labelled as A-, B-, C-, and D-
stages. The incoming material has a moisture of 80 percent which undergoes
moisture changes during processing. The material reaches the final storage at a
moisture level of 4 percent. High performance control of the vegetable
temperature is needed after each drying stage. The advantages of this control are
the ability to raise the final moisture level after the D-stage, and to raise the
drying rate in all of the stages. The ability to raise the drying rate derives from
two factors. One is that accurate temperature control allows the maintenance of
higher average temperatures after a stage since the risk of excursions into a
domain where unacceptable colour change would occur has been reduced
compared with manual control. The other factor is better balance between
drying stages.

Fig 3.6 Vegetable-drying process

CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
Food products in the United States have changed considerably in
assortment, quantity, and quality since the beginning of the twentieth century. In
general, the shift has resulted in better diets, a more varied food supply the year
round, and forms of food that take less preparation time in the home. The mid
1970s will see the food processing industry accept process instrumentation and
computer control at a growth pace equivalent to the petrochemical industries in
the mid-1960s and the pump and paper industries in the early 1970s. Significant
improvements in food processing productivity will be accomplished in the food
industry by the application of process instrumentation and computer control in
the next few years. Significant reductions in food processors' costs will be
accomplished by the application of process instrumentation and computer
control in the next years.

REFERENCES
1. Baker, K. E., "Computer Control of a Sugar Refinery,"1st Annual
Instrument Society of America Food and Beverage Instrumentation
Symposium, Montreal, Canada, June 7, 1972.
2. Reed, V. W., "Computer Process Control: It's the New Thing," 1st Annual
Instrument Society of American Food and Beverage Instrumentation
Symposium, Montreal, Canada, June 7, 1972.
3. Timbers, G. E„ "Measurement of Moisture in Foods," 2nd Annual
Instrument Society of American Food and Beverage Instrumentation
Symposium, Montreal, Canada, June 4, 1973.
4. Delavier, H. J., "Fuel Savings in a Consistent Heat Economy of a Beet
Sugar Factory," 18th General Meeting of the American Society of Beet
Sugar Technologists, Feb. 24, 1974.
5. Kohn, A. R., "Computer Rides Herd on Big Milk Processor, “Food
Engineering, A Chilton Publication, Randor, Pa Apr. 1974.
6. Hodson, R. W., "Computers Pay Off in Food Process Control, “Food
Engineering, A Chilton Publication, Randor, Pa June 1974.
7. "Why Food Processors are Starving for Profits," Business Week,
editorial, Dec. 1, 1973.
8. Takahashi, Y., Rabins, M. J., and Auslander, D. M.,"Control and
Dynamic Systems," Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1970.
9. Cooper, H. R., "What We Can Expect From Process Control in the Food
Industry," Food Processing Symposium, Endicott, N. Y., Dec. 9, 1963.
10.National Canners Association, "Proposed Process Control Plan," Federal
Register, Nov. 12, 1971.
11."Official Standards and Methods for Dehydrated Onion and Garlic
Products," American Dehydrated Onion and Garlic Association ADOGA,
San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 1, 1974.