Back to results
US 12,728,615 B2Granted
Plant and method for manufacturing corrugated board with an order change detector
AssigneeFosber S.p.A.
InventorsMauro Adami, Lorenzo Vannucchi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The plant includes a visual inspection system provided with one or more vision units. The vision units detect and recognize, through adequate electronic processing, the images printed on at least one face of the corrugated board web. Based on the image recognition, the control system recovers, from a lookup table, information for setting the converting line to produce the subsequent order of sheets.
Claims13
A plant for producing corrugated board sheets;
- wherein the plant comprises:
- a single facer for producing a corrugated board web comprising a first web of flat paper and a web of fluted paper;
- a converting system for converting the corrugated board web into single sheets, each sheet having at least one decorative and/or informative image on at least one face which will remain visible in use of the corrugated board sheets;
- the corrugated board web containing sheets of a plurality of consecutive orders, the sheets of two consecutive orders of said plurality of consecutive orders differing from each other in the at least one decorative and/or informative image, the at least one decorative and/or informative image of the sheets of a single order being equal to only one another;
- a visual inspection system comprising at least one visual inspection unit running an image recognition software and provided upstream of the converting system with respect to a feed direction of the corrugated board web;
- wherein the visual inspection unit with the image recognition software is adapted to detect and recognize the at least one decorative and/or informative image printed on the corrugated board web when the corrugated board web passes in front of the visual inspection unit;
- wherein the visual unit with the image recognition software is configured to recognize change from a previous order to a subsequent order based on recognition of a new decorative and/or information image of said at least one decorative and/or informative image of the subsequent order;
- a control system adapted to control the converting system;
- wherein the control system comprises a lookup table containing, for each order said at least one decorative and/or informative image of the order and, associated with the at least one decorative and/or informative image of the order, information for setting the converting system to produce said order so that the control system sets the converting system for producing a subsequent order before the image associated with the subsequent order arrives in the converting system, when the visual inspection unit with the image recognition software, detects the passage of the at least one decorative and/or informative image associated with the subsequent order, and recognizes the at least one decorative and/or informative image;
- and wherein the control system is configured to retrieve from the lookup table information for setting the converting system to produce the subsequent order and to set the converting system based on the information retrieved.
7 more elements
A method for producing corrugated board sheets, comprising steps as follows:
- producing a corrugated board web comprising at least a flat paper web and a fluted paper web;
- wherein the flat paper web has at least one decorative and/or informative image sequentially printed on at least one face which will remain visible in use of the corrugated board sheets;
- wherein the corrugated board web contains sheets of subsequent orders, each of said subsequent orders having at least one decorative and/or informative image, the at least one decorative and/or informative image of the sheets of a single order being equal to one another;
- feeding the corrugated board web along a feed path in front of a visual inspection unit running an image recognition software and adapted to detect the at least one decorative and/or informative image;
- feeding the corrugated board web through a converting system downstream of the visual inspection unit, and converting the corrugated board web into single corrugated board sheets;
- providing a lookup table;
- wherein the lookup table contains for each order:
- the at least one decorative and/or informative image of the order, and for each order and for each of the at least one decorative and/or informative image, information associated to the order and adapted to set up the converting system to produce a respective order;
- when the visual inspection unit with the image recognition software detects a change in the at least one decorative and/or informative image of a subsequent order with respect to the at least one decorative and/or informative image of a previous order and recognizes a decorative and/or informative image of the at least one decorative and/or informative image of the subsequent order, from the lookup table information associated with the at least one decorative and/or informative image printed on the corrugated board web and setting up the converting system based on the information retrieved to produce the subsequent order before the corrugated board web, containing the at least one decorative and/or informative image associated with the subsequent order, arrives in the converting system.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.