System and method of monitoring the quality of cutting

Abstract

A method and system for monitoring the quality of log cutting either off-line or in real-time is based on optical measurement of half-squared or full-squared cants characteristics as produced at primary or secondary cutting stage, so as to increase the proportion of high-value wood pieces that can be recovered from full squared-cants produced at the sawing stage. The log is fed lengthwise to a primary cutting station (canter) capable of producing the first pair of opposing cut faces, while guiding the log substantially in a direction of the machine axis. The profile of the peripheral log surface at a plurality of cross-sections along the machine axis is measured to generate corresponding post-cut profile data, from which an estimation of log raw profile characteristics is made, to generate corresponding raw profile data. Then, from post-cut and raw profile data, resulting data on at least one parameter related to the cutting quality of the log. The proposed monitoring system and method provide accurate control of target dimensions, while optimizing the adjustment of other quality related parameters such as faces parallelism and cant centering, as well as to measure the level of some surface defects generated at cutting such as knife marks, stripping and roughness, in order to obtain a more complete performance diagnostic.