| 摘要 |
<p>An optical sorter for grading oblong articles which are conveyed one at a time mutually spaced and usually placed perpendicular to the direction of conveyance on a conveyor belt. The optical sorter uses laser light and infra-red light sensors and an elctronic camera connected to data-processing equipment arranged to determine whether an article is to be accepted or rejected, and with at least one grading device (70) which is connected to an output from the data-processing equipment (50), and arranged to remove articles under the control of the data-processing equipment. In the new optical sorter the articles are conducted through a 'blanket' of light, preferably laser light, to determine the height or 'sweep' of each article, and the thickness of the article is measured by optical displacement sensors on the basis of distance measurements. In addition the measurements with the optical displacement sensors (44-47) are used to calculate the so-called 'propeller' distortion of the articles by calculating a plane through the three measuring-points and calculating the distance from a fourth measuring-point to the said plane. The objects are photographed by an electronic camera (52) and the data thus recorded are used to clculate the article's length, length variations, width, width variations, rounding, so-called 'banana' distortion, absolute colour and colour differences. The electronic measuring circuit is arranged to provide statistics on the deviations of the sticks (30) from the given limit values for a normal grading and if required for a second grading, and is arranged to display the results on the monitor screen (50).</p> |
