Bug-free non-Bodek Salad

Engineers at the university were asked for help by Hampshire-based Vitacress Salads Ltd, which is a grower and packer of watercress, rocket and baby leaf salads for all the major supermarkets.

They were asked to come up with a scheme to ensure no foreign bodies found their way into their washed and bagged salads during production.

The university's research and innovation service staff then enlisted the help of the department of mechanical engineering to help design a new production system.

Recent graduate Amit Kumavat, with supervision from Professor Steve Culley, designed the system which includes devices to separate leaves automatically, helping to remove unwanted pests.

Mr Kumavat also worked with the university's professor of biometrics, Julian Vincent, to create artificial bugs which emit electrical signals as a test for the new system.

They were deliberately introduced into the salad production system and transmitted signals if they successfully made it through inspection without being extracted by Mr Kumavat's system.

The full article here.