Quality evaluation of flue-cured tobacco by near infrared spectroscopy and spectral similarity method

Herein we propose near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a rapid method of evaluating the quality of agricultural products. Unlike existing quantitative or qualitative models, quality similarity is characterised using spectral similarity. Key factors of the spectral similarity method were investigated, including variable selection, preprocessing and similaritymeasures. Sophisticated techniqueswere developed to ensure the reliability of similarity algorithm. The proposed method was tested by quality similarity of flue-cured tobacco samples. The results demonstrated that the quality-related factors between the target and the similar samples (determined by spectral similarity), showed high similarities. This newmethod has the potential to characterise product quality effectively and could be a useful new alternative to the widely used PLS models. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.