Glass bottle inspection apparatus and method

摘要

The present invention relates to a glass bottle inspection apparatus which can detect a defect at a specific location such as a bottle-mouth portion of a glass bottle by an imaging process. The glass bottle inspection apparatus includes an inspection unit having one or plural illuminating units (LED1 through LED6) configured to illuminate a glass bottle (1) and at least one camera (CAM1 through CAM4) configured to image light reflected from the glass bottle (1), configured to detect a defect at a specific location of the glass bottle. The apparatus has a controller (4) configured to control operations of the one or plural illuminating units (LED1 through LED6) and the camera (CAM1 through CAM4). The controller (4) controls the one or plural illuminating units (LED1 through LED6) individually to emit a pulsed light in synchronism with an image capturing timing of the camera (CAM1 through CAM4).

主权项

1. A glass bottle inspection apparatus comprising:
a first inspection unit which comprises plural illuminating units configured to illuminate a bottle-mouth portion of a glass bottle from an obliquely upward position and at least one camera configured to image light reflected from the glass bottle from an obliquely upward position; a second inspection unit which comprises plural illuminating units configured to illuminate the bottle-mouth portion from a lateral position and at least one camera configured to image light reflected from the glass bottle from a lateral position, said second inspection unit being disposed below said first inspection unit; a controller configured to control operations of said respective illuminating units and said respective cameras to detect a check in the bottle-mouth portion based on images captured by said camera of said first inspection unit and said camera of said second inspection unit; wherein said controller controls said respective cameras so that an image capturing timing of said camera of said first inspection unit and an image capturing timing of said camera of said second inspection unit differ from each other; said controller controls said plural illuminating units of said first inspection unit individually to emit a pulsed light in synchronism with the image capturing timing of said camera of said first inspection unit; said controller controls said plural illuminating units of said second inspection unit individually to emit a pulsed light in synchronism with the image capturing timing of said camera of said second inspection unit; and said controller detects a check which has a crack plane extending in a lateral direction in the bottle-mouth portion, based on the image captured by said camera of said first inspection unit, and detects a check which has a crack plane extending in a vertical direction in the bottle-mouth portion, based on the image captured by said camera of said second inspection unit.