Automated Discrimination of Appearance Quality Grade of Mushroom () Using Computer Vision-Based Air-Blown System.

The mushroom is one of the most popular varieties in the international market because it is highly nutritious and has a delicious flavor. However, grading is still performed manually, leading to inconsistent grading standards and low efficiency. In this study, deep learning and computer vision techniques were used to develop an automated air-blown grading system for classifying this mushroom into three quality grades. The system consisted of a classification module and a grading module. In the classification module, the cap and stalk regions were extracted using the YOLOv8-seg algorithm, then post-processed using OpenCV based on quantitative grading indexes, forming the proposed SegGrade algorithm. In the grading module, an air-blown grading system with an automatic feeding unit was developed in combination with the SegGrade algorithm. The experimental results show that for 150 randomly selected mushrooms, the trained YOLOv8-seg algorithm achieved an accuracy of 99.5% in segmenting the cap and stalk regions, while the SegGrade algorithm achieved an accuracy of 94.67%. Furthermore, the system ultimately achieved an average grading accuracy of 80.66% and maintained the integrity of the mushrooms. This system can be further expanded according to production needs, improving sorting efficiency and meeting market demands.