Device and method for inspecting card-like articles
AssigneeDai Nippon Insatsu Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsMichiaki Kobayashi, Shigeo Hachiki, Makoto Shibasaki, Satoshi Sasaki
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Abstract
A card-like article inspection device has an inclined table for placing articles thereon in an upright and aligned state, a camera for detecting the foremost article, and an article feed frame for transferring the article having been inspected along one side of the table in its upright posture. The articles having been inspected are pushed separately into two placing portions of the table. Thus, the articles can be classified into a group of non-defective articles or into a group of defective articles.
Claims15
A card-like article inspection device of the type for inspecting the outer appearance of a card-like article to check whether the surfaces of said card-like article have non-defective images or defective images, thereby classifying said card-like article into a first group consisting of non-defective card-like articles or into a second group consisting of defective card-like articles, comprising:
- (a) a table comprising
- (i) an article feeding portion for feeding a plurality of articles to be inspected in an upright and aligned state,
- (ii) a defective-article placing portion disposed in parallel with said article feeding portion for discharging defective articles in an upright and aligned state, and
- (iii) a non-defective article placing portion disposed in parallel with said article feeding portion for discharging non-defective articles in an upright and aligned state;
- (b) an article transfer means disposed along one side of said table for intermittently transferring an inspected article held in an upright state in the lateral direction of said table to said defective article placing portion or said non-defective article placing portion, said article transfer means comprising
- (i) a guide frame disposed along said one side of said table for guiding an inspected article held in an upright state,
- (ii) an article feed frame which is disposed so as to be reciprocated along said guide frame and has feed pawl means to hold an inspected article so as to transfer the same from a first position at the front end of said article feeding portion to a second position at the front end of said non-defective article placing portion adjacent to said article feeding portion and further from said second position to a third position of the placing portion further adjacent to said first mentioned placing portion along said guide means,
- (iii) an article positioning mechanism for positioning an article at said first position so that said article thus positioned is subjected to inspection,
- (iv) an article pushing mechanism for pushing the articles which have been inspected and transferred to said second and third positions into the respective placing portions depending upon the results of the inspection, and
- (v) a synchronizing mechanism for synchronizing the reciprocal movement of said article feed frame with the operation of said article pushing mechanism;
- (c) a camera which is disposed in an opposed relationship with said first position at the front end of said article feeding portion and which inspects the surface of a card held at said first position;
- (d) an image processor for comparing a previously stored reference image with the image of an article being inspected, thereby determining whether said article being inspected is non-defective or defective;
- and
- (e) a signal processor which controls said image processor and said article transfer means in synchronism with each other.
A method of inspecting the outer appearance of a card-like article to check whether the surfaces of the article have non-defective images or defective images, said method comprising the steps of:
- (a) placing a plurality of card-like articles to be inspected on a table in an upright and aligned state;
- (b) inspecting the outer appearance of the foremost article by a camera opposed to a first position of one side of the table;
- (c) feeding intermittently the article having been inspected along the one side of the table from the first position to a second position adjacent to the first position while an article having been inspected and located in the second position is fed from the second position to a third position adjacent to the second position along the one side of the table;
- and
- (d) pushing the article having been inspected toward a corresponding placing portion on the table according to the result of inspection by an image processor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.