Location: Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory
Project Number: 8042-42000-021-020-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 1, 2026
End Date: Jul 31, 2028
Objective:
The objective of this cooperative effort is to develop and evaluate a multimode spectroscopy and imaging system with embedded edge-computing capability for food and agriculture safety applications. The system will support multimodal data collection, AI-assisted analysis, and real-time deployment on embedded NVIDIA-based edge platforms. The project will focus on generation and analysis of multimodal datasets to support development of AI models for detection and assessment of bacterial load, biological contamination, food safety indicators, quality assessment, and related spectral biomarkers relevant to food processing, agricultural monitoring, and environmental assessment applications. The effort will also support development of integrated software and edge-AI workflows for real-time analysis, visualization, and reporting in laboratory, processing, and operational environments.
Approach:
Cooperator will collaborate with ARS in the design, integration, testing, and validation of a multimodal sensing platform incorporating combinations of RGB/color imaging, thermal imaging, LiDAR distance sensing, fluorescence point spectroscopy, and visible/near-infrared (VIS-NIR) reflectance spectroscopy. The multimodal system may include fluorescence excitation wavelengths such as 365 nm and 395 nm, VIS-NIR reflectance measurements approximately spanning 450–1700 nm, and embedded NVIDIA-based edge computing hardware for synchronized data acquisition, AI inference, visualization, and real-time decision support. The system architecture may support deployment in laboratories, agricultural, food processing, mobile, or field environments.