摘要 |
A density inspection apparatus and method. The apparatus is disposed downstream of a wrapping section of a cigarette manufacturing machine. In accordance with pulse output signals generated by a rotary encoder in synchronism with the travel of a cigarette rod, a zone of the rod is subjected to density inspection. An actual density signal indicating the tobacco shred filling density in the inspected zone is intermittently supplied from a density detector, and a group of reference density signals indicative of a change in density of a low-density portion of a dummy cigarette is supplied from a storage device. A difference between each actual density signal and a corresponding reference density signal is calculated, and the square sum of the signal differences in respect of all the density signals is calculated to determine a nonconformity degree between the actual and reference density signals. If the nonconformity degree of any one of the zones of the cigarette rod portion is small, this rod portion is determined as having a high possibility of including a local low-density portion.
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