Device for counting products stacked side-by-side
AssigneeGilles Leroux S.A.
InventorsBachar Bittar, Dominique Perdoux
Life of this patent
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Abstract
This invention relates to a device for counting products (1) that are thin, stacked side by side and arranged edgewise in trays (2) packaged under a translucent shrink-on film, characterized in that it comprises: means (7) for illuminating the tray; means (91) for detecting the positioning of a tray on a mobile shuttle (81, 21) driven with a displacement movement; means (4, 5, 6) for performing multiple scannings of the tray by a linear reading beam of a linear camera during the displacement in a direction that is perpendicular to the linear beam; means for storing the light data contained in the linear beam, and counting means for each scanning of the number of products.
Claims14
Device for counting products that are thin, stacked side-by-side and arranged edgewise in trays packaged under a translucent shrink-on film, said device comprising:
- means for illuminating a tray;
- mobile shuttle means for supporting said tray, said mobile shuttle means being displaceable in a first direction of movement;
- means for detecting a position of said tray on said shuttle means;
- means for performing multiple scannings of said tray by a linear reading beam of a linear camera during movement of said shuttle means in said first direction of movement, said first direction of movement being perpendicular to said linear beam;
- means for storing light data contained in said linear beam;
- and
- counting means responsive to each scanning for counting the number of products.
A counting device for counting products that are thin, stacked side-by-side and arranged edgewise in trays packages under a translucent shrink-on film, comprising:
- means for illuminating a tray;
- mobile shuttle means for supporting said tray, said mobile shuttle means being displaceable in a first direction of movement;
- means for detecting a position of said tray on said shuttle means;
- means for performing at least one scanning of said tray by a linear reading beam of a linear camera during movement of said shuttle means in said first direction, said first direction being perpendicular to said linear beam, said camera including a bar of photosensitive elements;
- means for storing data delivered by said bar of photosensitive elements in a memory containing as many as eight-bit bytes as there are photosensitive elements;
- and
- means for determining peaks and valleys in information contained in said memory, wherein detection of a valley is performed in relation to a stored preceding peak by measuring the distance between the peak and a processed pixel which is represented by one word of one eight-bit byte, and in relation to a stored preceding valley by measuring the distance between the valley and the processed pixel, and by assuming the pixel forms a valley if the two distances are proper compared to a reference value, and determining by the number of valleys, to thereby count the number of products.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.