Satake Corporation

Masazumi Hara

Tomoyuki Miyamoto

Takafumi Ito

Hideaki Ishizu

Hiroaki Takeuchi

Takahiro Doi

Hiroki Ishizuki

Jun Zheng

Yoshikazu Tateishi

Masahiro Egi

Shuichi Hirano

Tatsuhiko Ochi

The present invention intends to provide an optical sorting machine which can improve the collection rate of non-defective products without increasing the size of the machine. The optical sorting machine of the present invention includes a granular object feed unit including storage means that stores an object to be sorted, and transfer means that transfers the object to be sorted from the storage means; an optical sorting unit including optical detection means that detects an object to be sorted falling along a predetermined trajectory from an end portion of the transfer means, determination means that determines a type of the object to be sorted based on a detection signal from the optical detection means, an ejector that removes an object to be sorted determined as a specific type from the predetermined falling trajectory based on a determination result by the determination means, and a discharge hopper having a first discharge passage provided at a falling position of the object to be sorted falling along the predetermined trajectory, a second discharge passage provided at a falling position of the object to be sorted removed from the predetermined falling trajectory, and a third discharge passage formed between the first discharge passage and the second discharge passage; and conveyance means that conveys an object to be sorted discharged from the third discharge passage of the discharge hopper in the optical sorting unit to the storage means of the granular object feed unit.

Optical sorting machine

An optical type granule sorting machine has a determination unit that includes a three-dimensional color distribution data creation section that creates data on wavelength components of R light, G light, and B light from granules in a three-dimensional color space, a Mahalanobis distance interface creation section that partitions the data into a conforming granule cluster area and a nonconforming granule cluster area, a Euclidean distance interface creation section that determines a position of center of gravity of the conforming granule cluster area and a position of center of gravity of the nonconforming granule cluster area to set an interface that allows the positions of center of gravity to lie at a longest distance from each other, a two-dimensional data conversion section that converts into two-dimensional color distribution data by using a line of intersection between the interfaces, and a threshold setting section.

Optical type granule sorting machine

An optical type granule sorting machine is provided which allows a sensitivity setting to be easily performed by effectively utilizing RGB three-dimensional color space information similar to information obtained via human eyes and which enables signal processing to be substantially simplified. Determination means includes a three-dimensional color distribution data creation section that creates data on wavelength components of R light, G light, and B light from the granules, on a three-dimensional color space, a Mahalanobis distance interface creation section that sets an interface calculated based on a Mahalanobis distance to partition the data into a conforming-granule cluster area and a nonconforming granule cluster area, a Euclidean distance interface creation section that determines a position of center of gravity of the conforming granule cluster area and a position of center of gravity of the nonconforming granule cluster area to set an interface calculated based on a Euclidean distance at which the positions of center of gravity lie at a longest distance from each other, and a threshold determination section that determines a line of intersection between the interface calculated based on the Mahalanobis distance and the interface calculated based on the Euclidean distance, to determine the line of intersection to be a determination threshold that allows determination of whether or not the granules are to be treated as a separation target.

A tray used to place granular materials on a reading surface of an image reading device has provided thereto a transparent bottom plate, a background vertically upstanding relative to the bottom plate, and reflective elements arranged at predetermined intervals parallel to the background. In order to enable an imaging means of the image reading device to receive a side view image of the granular materials in the thickness direction thereof with the granular materials placed on the bottom plate of the tray, the tray is provided with a technical means for bending and guiding, by the reflective elements, light from the granular materials in the thickness direction thereof to the direction of the optical axis of the imaging means.

Tray for image reading device

An optical cracked-grain selector that does not mistakenly identify normal grains of rice having no cracks as cracked grains due to the presence of the embryonic portion and/or surface scratches when optically identifying cracked grains of rice mixed in with material rice grains. An identification part in a cracked grain identification unit obtains a first rice grain image (having an embryonic portion and scratches) based on light passed through the rice grain that is received by a first CCD sensor built into a CCD camera of a photoreaction detection unit and a second rice grain image (having cracks, an embryo portion and scratches) based on light passed through the rice grain received by a second CCD sensor built into the CCD camera, acquires an image of the cracks by calculating a difference in the amount of light between the two rice grain images, and identifies a cracked grain.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Masazumi Hara