Sunkist Growers Inc.

Haa Consulting

Richard D Heck

Henry A Affeldt

James B Sheffler

Henry A Affeldt, Jr

Don E Dossey

Juan Gutierrez Ibarra

Eric J Melton

Matias C Gonzales, Jr

Lynette M Setlich

Alfredo Acevedo

The present invention relates to a melon cutting apparatus that cuts a melon portion or melon half. The apparatus cuts the melon pulp into sections, and removes the rind from the pulp. The apparatus includes a base having an opening; a cutting matrix that has a plurality of blades, wherein the cutting matrix communicates with the opening. The apparatus also includes a sweeping blade that is curved and positioned at or near the cutting matrix and is used to cut the rind from the melon pulp. The apparatus further includes an actuator that engages the sweeping blade. The apparatus embodies an arm attached to the apparatus, and a pressure cap that is mounted to the arm, opposite the cutting matrix. Additionally, the present invention pertains to systems and methods of using the apparatus.

Melon cutting apparatus

Food slicer

A method and apparatus of sorting plant products based on damage to the plant products is disclosed. A beam emitter emits an illumination light toward the outer surface of a plant product. A beam detector detects substantially a single wavelength of a reflected light produced by the plant product responsive to the illumination light. A control unit determines at least one of a presence, an amount, and a severity of damage responsive to the reflected light. The control unit assigns a damage category to the plant product responsive to the determination of damage.

Method and apparatus for detecting damage in plant products

An automatic food product cutting apparatus is provided that employs a continuously rotating table arranged with multiple cutter cups, each cup being aligned with a plunger that rotates with the table. The plungers are driven to force fruit through the cup and to withdraw from the cup by cam following rollers that follow a generally elliptical cam track. The cam track is concentric to but does not rotate with the table. With this arrangement, a single drive motor is used to power both the rotation of the table and the plunging force to push the food product through the cutter cups, thereby achieving smooth, continuous operation.

Automatic sectionizer

The topographic surface features of a translucent object, such as a citrus fruit with a peel, are scanned and evaluated to permit the classification thereof according to its surface features. In the case of citrus fruit, the coarseness or pebbliness, puff and crease, ridge and valley, cuts, punctures, scrapes and splits, clear rot or sour rot of the peel is optically identified through digital analysis of the pixel scans and sorted based upon the peel surface quality. The object is classified by separating the scanned image of the fruit from the background image and removing the background image. A statistical evaluation of the image of the object as a whole, including both hemispheres of the object, is made to determine if there is any surface feature variation which might qualify as a defect or be a suitable basis upon which a classification judgment can be made. If there is, the object image is subject to high frequency or low pass filtering and thresholding of the pixel intensities to derive a refined image. The refined image is then tabulated or organized into neighborhoods contiguous to sharp transitions or gradual transitions to identify specific areas defined as blobs which, when compared against a given minimum area, shape requirement and/or width can be identified as one of the surface imperfections sought.

Method and apparatus for detecting surface features of translucent

An apparatus for packing closely-arranged articles into a receptacle includes a rigid funnel having inwardly sloping walls and a downwardly projecting flexible skirt means attached to the funnel. The flexible skirt comprises a plurality of flexible planar segments that project downwardly into the receptacle. The funnel and skirt are lowered into an empty receptacle, the articles are packed, and the funnel and skirt are lifted out. The skirt means avoids contact between the articles and the walls of the receptacle as the receptacle is being packed, thereby decreasing the potential for damage to the articles. The apparatus includes a switch that stops the downward movement of the funnel and skirt when the bottom edge of the skirt is adjacent the bottom of the receptacle.

Growing community of inventors

Lucerne Valley, CA, United States of America

Richard D Heck