Nondestructive Optical Sensing for Food Quality and Safety Inspection

Dear Colleagues,

The food industry continues to be faced with needs to supply safe and high-quality food products while addressing the issue of food loss and waste reduction. Non-destructive optical sensing, such as point spectroscopy and optical imaging, utilizes light to characterize and measure the physical, chemical, and biological properties of food materials, and it promises to meet the industrial needs and ensure consumer satisfaction. Recent advances in artificial intelligence and computing technologies have opened new opportunities for enhanced food quality and safety inspection. However, many technical hurdles still lie ahead for the quantitative characterization of food quality/safety attributes, mining/modelling of large volumes of sensor data, and practical deployment/integration of the optical sensing techniques in production lines. This Special Issue aims to disseminate novel research in the development and application of non-destructive optical sensing techniques for the quality and safety inspection of agricultural and food products. Authors are welcome to submit original research and review papers covering but not limited to the following topics:

• Instrumentation of innovative optical sensing techniques;
• Assessment of external and internal quality attributes;
• Detection of food spoilage and contamination;
• Quantitative optical characterization and mapping;
• Hyperspectral and multispectral imaging for food inspection;
• Sensor fusion for enhanced food inspection;
• Real-time inspection of food products;
• Spectroscopic and image data processing methods;
• Artificial intelligence and robotics for food inspection.

Prof. Dr. Yuzhen Lu
Dr. Seung-Chul Yoon
Dr. Haibo Yao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.