System for the automatic selective separation of rotten citrus fruits

A system for the automatic selective separation of rotten pieces of fruit, comprising:

• a conveyor for moving said pieces of fruit along a path through a processing line, with simultaneous rotation of the pieces of fruit at least in a portion of the path corresponding to an observation and viewing member;
• illumination sets configured for illuminating the pieces of fruit using light comprised in UV-A band of the spectrum to produce florescence on rotten portions of the fruit, if any;
• a computer vision unit for scanning the illuminated pieces of fruit conveyed in order to identify emitted fluorescences, wherein the computer vision unit comprises a compartment closed to the outside within which the conveyor runs, the illumination sets and two MAF cameras each with two monochromatic sensors are positioned and wherein the two MAF cameras capture the fluorescences emitted by the illuminated pieces of fruit including rotten portions;
• an automatic expulsion unit for expelling the pieces of fruit identified as rotten based on the viewed fluorescences;
• a device for controlling the position of each of the pieces of fruit identified as rotten;
• and
• a general system control member, connected to each and every one of the operative elements integrating the latter;
• wherein the fluorescences emitted by rotten portions of the illuminated pieces of fruit inside the computer vision unit are yellow, wherein at least one of the sensors is equipped with a filter that allows a passage of light corresponding to the yellow light spectral band and another of the sensors is equipped with a near infrared (NIR) filter to detect an infrared (IR) component associated to the emission of UV light and to allow observing a slight loss in an image generated with the sensor with the filter facing a rotten portion of one of the illuminated pieces of fruit.