| 摘要 |
<p>An article grading system for sorting objects, for example apples, into boxes containing apples of substantially the same size. The system optimises the packing process so that the value of the boxes packed from a given lot of apples is maximised. The system is provided with information relating to the price distribution of apples of various sizes and, using this as well as other information, decides at which box each individual apple should be off-loaded. The system works on-line wherein fruit are delivered to the system via a conveyor (7) on which are mounted a plurality of 'cups', each of which may hold one apple. A local area network (15) of personal computers controls the operation of the system including accepting for input the weights or sizes of each individual piece of fruit via weighing or optical recognition stations and controlling the ejection of each individual piece of fruit at positions along the conveyor (7) corresponding to respective boxes being packed depending on the solution determined by the optimising algorithm which is also implemented on a personal computer linked to the local area network.</p> |
