System and method for thickness measurement in tortilla production
AssigneePremier Innovations, Inc.
InventorsBrian E. Bartlett, Douglas W. Cotton
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A production system for measuring product thickness in tortilla and tortilla chip production includes a production line, including a cooker/grinder, a sheeter/cutter, and a conveyor belt; and a displacement measurement unit, including a processor, non-transitory memory, an input/output component, a laser sensor for measuring vertical displacement of the conveyor belt and objects thereon, a laser controller, and a displacement calculator. Also disclosed is a method for thickness measurement, including capturing samples, calculating a vertical displacement probability density function, and calculating average product thickness.
Claims20
A production system for measuring product thickness, comprising:
- a) a production line, comprising:
- a conveyor belt, which is configured to move a plurality of product pieces;
- b) a laser sensor, which is configured to take continuous vertical displacement measurements of objects passing by in a static point of the conveyor belt, such that the laser sensor obtains a continuous sequence of vertical displacement measurements at a predetermined measuring rate;
- and
- c) a displacement measurement unit, which is configured to receive the continuous sequence of vertical displacement measurements, wherein the displacement measurement unit further comprises:
- a displacement calculator, which is configured to analyze the continuous sequence of vertical displacement measurements in order to calculate a probability density function for the continuous sequence of vertical displacement measurements.
A production system for measuring product thickness, comprising:
- a) a laser sensor, which is configured to take continuous vertical displacement measurements of objects passing by in a static point of a conveyor belt, such that the laser sensor obtains a continuous sequence of vertical displacement measurements at a predetermined measuring rate;
- and
- b) a displacement measurement unit, which is configured to receive the continuous sequence of vertical displacement measurements, wherein the displacement measurement unit further comprises:
- a displacement calculator, which is configured to analyze the continuous sequence of vertical displacement measurements in order to calculate a probability density function for the continuous sequence of vertical displacement measurements.
A method for measuring product thickness, comprising:
- a) capturing samples, wherein a plurality of vertical displacement measurements are captured at a predetermined sampling rate during a predetermined capture period;
- b) calculating a vertical displacement probability density function, wherein the plurality of vertical displacement measurements are used to calculate the vertical displacement probability density function which maps vertical displacement to a relative likelihood, by executing a function fitting algorithm to fit the vertical displacement probability density function to the plurality of vertical displacement measurements;
- and
- c) calculating an average product thickness as a difference between a product upper surface displacement position and a belt surface displacement position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.