A system and method for the automatic and continuous high-speed measurement of color and geometry characteristics of particles

A process for the automatic and continuous high-speed measurement of color and geometry characteristics of catalyst pellets, wherein said process comprises:

• sorting and aligning catalyst pellets within a pellet feeder;
• monitoring said catalyst pellets contained in said pellet feeder and generating a bowl inspection signal containing pellet quantity information representative of a number or presence of said catalyst pellets contained in said pellet feeder;
• transferring singularized pellets from said pellet feeder at a moving speed to a color inspection station and to a shape inspection station;
• measuring at said color inspection station reflected light from each of said singularized pellets and generating a color signal containing information representative of the color of each said singularized pellets;
• and
• measuring at said shape inspection station width, length and curvature characteristics of each of said singularized pellets and generating a geometry signal containing geometric information representative of the geometric characteristics of each said singularized pellets.

A vision inspection system for the automatic and continuous high-speed measurement of color and geometry characteristics of catalyst pellets, wherein said vision inspection system comprises:

• a pellet feeder for sorting and aligning catalyst pellets and presenting singularized pellets onto a conveyor belt for moving said singularized pellets to a color inspection station and to a shape inspection station;
• bowl inspection camera for monitoring said catalyst pellets contained in said pellet feeder and generating a bowl inspection signal containing pellet quantity information representative of a number or presence of said catalyst pellets contained in said pellet feeder;
• wherein said color inspection station includes color camera for receiving reflected light from each of said singularized pellets and generating a color signal containing color information representative of the color of each said singularized particle;
• and
• wherein said shape inspection station includes at least two cameras for sensing width, length and curvature characteristics of each of said singularized pellets and generating geometry signals containing geometric information representative of the geometric characteristics of each said singularized particle.