Development of an AI-Based Quality Grading Solution for Dried Seaweed

Overview

Although South Korea is the world’s leading producer of dried seaweed, the country lacks quantitative and objective grading standards, creating a need for reliable price calculation and fair- trade practices. To address this, a specialized AI consortium has been supported since 2024 to establish an AI-based quality evaluation system that utilizes seaweed appearance images and nutritional data, establishing an objective and automated grading system.

Project description

By processing and utilizing diverse quality data, such as seaweed appearance images, held by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and fisheries food support agencies, this project is developing and validating an AI quality measurement solution. This involves training AI solutions for seaweed quality grading and models for detecting holes and impurities.

This solution provides services including:

• AI seaweed grading functionality that automatically assigns a 5-tier grade based on appearance and composition data;
• Hole and impurity detection capabilities that identify foreign matter and surface defects;
• An automated quality measurement system for rapid quality assessment.

Key technological features

• Integrated analysis of image and numerical data for 5-grade classification
• Integration of vision AI models for impurity and hole detection with non-destructive automatic measurement hardware systems: Provides a real-time grading evaluation environment capable of determining quality within an average of several seconds

Expected outcomes

Through AI solutions, this project expects to enhance the accuracy of kim grade classification, reduce measurement time, and increase quality evaluation throughput. Furthermore, by linking the system to dry kim processing sites and automating quality judgments—previously reliant on subjective evaluations—AI is expected to improve the reliability and consistency of evaluation.

Launch year: 2024

Attribution

Case study courtesy of the National Information Society Agency, Republic of Korea, Apolitical's Content Partner. Sourced from Use Cases of Public AI Service, Vol.1,  https://eng.nia.or.kr/site/nia_eng/ex/bbs/View.do?cbIdx=31975&bcIdx=28997&parentSeq=29017