APPLICATION OF AUTOMATIC CONTROL SYSTEMS IN ELECTRO-TECHNOLOGICAL DRYING OF LEGUMINOUS CROPS: A REVIEW

Abstract

Leguminous crops — beans, chickpeas, lentils, peas, and mung beans — require effective post-harvest drying to ensure safe storage and nutritional quality. Conventional hot-air drying is widely used but suffers from high energy consumption and considerable degradation of bioactive compounds. Electro-technological methods, including microwave (MW), infrared (IR), and pulsed electric field (PEF)-assisted drying, offer faster drying kinetics and superior quality retention. However, these methods demand automatic control systems to maintain process stability and optimize energy-quality trade-offs. This review examines the integration of PID controllers, PLC, SCADA, fuzzy logic, and AI-based optimization with electro-technological drying for leguminous crops. Hybrid MW–hot air systems with intelligent control reduce specific energy consumption by 20–57% while preserving color, phenolic content, and rehydration capacity. ANFIS models predict moisture ratio and exergy efficiency with R² ≈ 0.999. Despite promising results in fruit and vegetable drying, dedicated legume-specific integrated systems remain scarce. Future work should focus on legume-specific model development, IoT-enabled PLC/SCADA architectures with embedded deep learning, and techno-economic assessments.