A method of determining cut position of automatic stem removal system for salted wakame

In the wakame production procedure, the manual operation process of stem removal is known as a hindrance to the wakame production. In order to solve this problem, we aspire to develop an automatic wakame stem removal system. The purpose of this paper is to propose a cut position determination method for the system by picking up the characteristic changes that appear at the cross section of the wakame. In this method, with the utilization of exposure control, two images are captured from the same cross section that is made by a developed device. These images are used in the segmentation of the cross section. The positions where the stem should be cut can then be determined through the examination of the thickness of the cross section. To verify the feasibility of the proposed method in developing an automatic removal system, 100 cross sections were generated from the roots of 10 samples of the salt-preserved wakame with an interval of 20 mm. In the experiments, the success rate was 76% with the width selection of 1.5mm allowable part of the stem left on the leaves, and it increased with the extension of the allowable part.