Vision apparatus for guarding a cutting blade
AssigneeKando Innovation Limited
InventorsGeorge Davey Maddever, Keith Blenkinsopp
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Optical imaging apparatus and a machine vision camera system for an alarm protecting a person's hands when working at a motorized cutting or abrading machine, uses trains of sets of mirrors to define four spaced-apart viewpoints and transfer non-overlapping scenes on to an image sensor of a single camera. An optical axis from each viewpoint allows a cuboidal protected volume to be created. The cuboid may have vertical sides. Recognizable objects inside that volume cause the machine to stop, while objects near but outside the volume cause the apparatus to raise an alarm.
Claims10
A vision apparatus for guarding a machine when operated by a person and having a cutting blade;
- the vision apparatus having a controller configured to collect image data from an image sensor within a camera having a focusing lens sharing a common optical camera axis and initiate a physical action to prevent injury to the person if an object having a color contrasting with a background color is detected by the camera within a hazardous zone, wherein the apparatus uses an assembly of mirrors held in front of the lens of a single camera to reflect a contiguous plurality of bundles of light derived from a plurality of spaced-apart viewpoints covering an illuminated volume;
- each of which viewpoints has an optical viewpoint axis directed through the hazardous zone and toward a working surface;
- the optical viewpoint axes together defining a set of corner edges of a surveilled volume having a base upon the surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.