College of Food, Ag & Nat Res Sci
Twin Cities
This project is focused on developing novel imaging system (hyperspectral imaging) to characterize functional properties of dairy products. This is a pioneering project as this group is the first to employ this technique for dairy powder functionality characterization. Most of the dairy exports from the U.S. is in the form of dry dairy ingredients and such products undergo environmental variations (storage and handling) resulting in altered functionalities at the receiving end. To predict the behavior of such products after reconstitution, the group is exploring non-destructive non-contact methods.
Hyperspectral imaging includes both imaging and spectral information and forms 3D hypercubes with each hypercube containing both image and spectral details. Analyzing the data requires multivariate statistics, machine learning, and data science tools, and the developed models can be combined to predict the behavior of these dairy ingredients. Such a technology can help the dairy industry to formulate the products according to the characteristics of dairy ingredients and take necessary measures to alter the products to specific applications. This research could result in patents and industrial applications.