An algorithm to classify cereal grains, namely: barley, oats, rye and wheat (Canada Western Amber Durum (CWAD) and Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS)) based on grain kernel shapes using invariant elliptic Fourier descriptors (IEFDs) was developed. Boundary contours were extracted from the digital images of kernels, expressed as chain-coded points and then approximated by 13 Fourier harmonics. After normalisation of the size, rotation and starting point of the contours, the IEFDs were determined. Based on the first three IEFDs, perfect classification was achieved for barley, CWAD, CWRS and rye. The classification accuracies of oats were 99.7% and 100% for the first three and five IEFDs, respectively.
