In agriculture, there are many mechanical methods to indirectly measure a fruit's ripeness through its firmness. However, most fall short for soft fruits, which do not exhibit the same types of measurable vibration as harder ones. Now, scientists from Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan, have developed an innovative method to measure fruit firmness using laser-induced plasma shockwaves. Their contactless, non-destructive approach works on mangoes and should be useful for other soft fruits as well.
source https://phys.org/news/2021-03-ripe-contactless-method-harvest-soft.html
