Electronic tongue can analyze fruit, what next?

The tongue is a wonderful organ, as it lets you savor various kinds of food and flavors from a range of cuisines, and is definitely one sense that I would hate to lose. Well, trust robots to enter this decidedly human fray in the form of an electronic tongue that is touted to assess content of various foods and beverages. Researchers from Spain’s Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) managed to develop a particular model that is capable of analyzing the content of antioxidant powder, not to mention fruit and fruit produce. Man, if only kings of yore had electronic tongues to detect poison in their food!

Just how does this particular system function? For starters, it will feature a bunch of electronic measuring equipment that are linked to a PC which has custom software running in the background. When you subject fruit, juice or antioxidant samples to an electrical current, the response is then measured over a variety of frequencies, getting readings of antioxidant content measurement in various solutions.
No, you won’t find robots judging shows like Masterchef anytime soon, but this is a start and step in the right direction.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Gadgets