JP2003191013A - Illuminator for material to be counted - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an illuminator for materials to be counted, an illuminator that can uniformize incident light quantity to an image pickup unit, regardless of the end face condition or the end face position in an image pickup field of view of materials to be counted such as round bar steel. <P>SOLUTION: The illuminator 1 for materials to be counted such as round bar steel W is equipped with a lighting fixture 10, image pickup unit 20, and a diffusing plate 30 for diffusing and transmitting light emitted from the lighting fixture 10. The lighting fixture 10 is designed to be a fluorescent lamp equipment 12 having a group of fluorescent lamps 11 in a prescribed array. The diffusing plate 30 is formed with a transmitting hole 31 roughly in the center. The imaging section 20a of the image pickup unit 20 is stored in a protective tube 21 whose tip end is projected from the transmitting hole 31. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a lighting device for a material to be counted. More specifically, the present invention relates to an illuminating device for a material to be counted that can make the amount of incident light from each end surface of the material to be counted into the imaging device uniform regardless of the state of the end surface of the material to be counted.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, round bar steel cut into a predetermined length after roll forming has been bundled and shipped in a predetermined number (1 lot). In this case, in order to manage the number of shipments and the like, it is usual to count the number of round bar steels in any of the steps before and after binding.

Conventionally, various counting methods and counting devices have been proposed in order to perform such counting automatically and accurately.

For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-185669 proposes a method of counting the number of stacks on the basis of the weight of long bodies stacked in a stacking device.

However, this Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-1856
In order to apply the counting method proposed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 69, it is necessary for the rolling equipment to have a predetermined stacking device capable of detecting the weight of stacked long bodies. If it is applied to rolling equipment that is not equipped with a device, there is a problem that expensive new equipment investment is required.

The following counting method and counting device have been proposed as a method for counting during the conveying process up to binding and before binding.

For example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-32025, a detector for detecting the presence of a material is arranged in a reflective manner so as to face each of the end face and side face of the shaped steel, and the shaped steel is based on the output signal of the detector. There has been proposed a method of counting the number of.

However, this Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-32025
Since the counting method proposed in the publication uses the end face and side face of shaped steel, for example, flange end face and web side face of H shaped steel, which are peculiar to shaped steel, the number of round bar steels is counted. It is impossible to apply to.

In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 1-187687, an end face of a round bar steel material fed laterally on a carrying line is imaged by a line camera having a slit-shaped field of view inclined from a direction perpendicular to the carrying direction. Has proposed a counting method of detecting the moving direction and counting the number of feeds.

However, this Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 18768/1989.
In the counting method proposed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7, since each slit image is image-processed to detect the moving direction of the round bar steel, a large amount of time is required for the image processing, and a quick counting of the number is possible. There is a problem that it cannot be done.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 5-149718 discloses an image pickup device for picking up an image of a measuring point of a steel bar as a measuring device for measuring a length, a cross-sectional shape and the number of hot-rolled steel bars before bundling. There has been proposed a measuring device including an image processing device that processes an image captured by the imaging device and a computing device that computes a measurement value from a processed image obtained by the image processing device.

However, this Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-14971
In the measuring device proposed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 8, since not only the number of steel bars but also the length and the cross-sectional shape are measured, the device simply becomes a large scale to count the number. However, there is a problem in that the number of lines cannot be counted quickly.

Further, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 9-305737, as shown in FIG. 11, a plurality of round steel bars W ′, W ′, ... There has been proposed a method of counting the irradiation points by subjecting a picked-up image picked up by the CCD shutter camera with an infrared filter 101 to predetermined image processing.

According to the counting method proposed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 9-305737, even when the round steel bars W ', W', ... Are in contact with each other or are overlapped in a pyramid shape, the shutter is released. As shown in FIG. 12, the crescent image corresponding to each round steel bar W ′ appears separately in the image captured by the camera 101. Therefore, the number of round steel bars can be counted from the number of these crescent images. Becomes

However, in this counting method,
Round bar steel W ′, W ′, W near the side end of the transport table T ′
If ´ overlaps in a pyramid shape, there is a problem that an accurate count value may not be obtained. In such a case, most of the round bar W ′ located on the lower outer side is hidden by the round bar W ′ located above,
As shown in FIG. 13, the image corresponding to the lower outer round steel bar W'appearing in the image captured by the shutter camera 101 becomes very small, which makes it difficult to discriminate it from a noise image or the like, so that it is not accurately counted. is there.

In order to solve the problems of the prior art, the inventors of the present invention have already irradiated the end surface of the round bar steel from a predetermined angle and imaged the end surface of the irradiated round bar steel. A method and an apparatus for counting the number have been proposed (Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-293666).

However, in the previous proposal made by the present inventors, there is a large difference in the amount of light incident on the image pickup device depending on the properties of the end face of the round steel bar, the position of the end face in the imaging field of view, the irradiation angle of light, and the like. Therefore, it has been found that accurate counting of round bar steel may be difficult in some cases. In particular, it has been found that there is a problem in that there may be a state in which the amount of light incident on the image pickup device is almost zero when the end surface is a mirror surface or close to a mirror surface.

This problem can be solved by providing a large number of light sources or by using surface emitting LEDs, but in that case, another problem such as an increase in equipment, an increase in running cost, and a decrease in maintainability is brought about. Cause

Further, in the previous proposal by the present inventors,
It was also found that there is a problem in online counting that accurate counting under various reflection states is impossible.

[0020]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems of the inventors of the present invention. The characteristics of the end surface of the material to be counted, such as round bar steel, and the end surface within the imaging field of view. It is an object of the present invention to provide an illumination device for a material to be counted that can make the amount of light incident on the image pickup device uniform regardless of the position of the image pickup device.

[0021]

An illuminating device for a material to be counted according to the present invention comprises an illuminating device, an imaging device, and a diffusing plate for diffusing and transmitting the irradiation light from the illuminating device. Is a fluorescent lamp facility provided with a fluorescent lamp group arranged in a predetermined arrangement, a through hole is formed in substantially the center of the diffusion plate, and the image pickup unit of the image pickup device has a tip projecting from the through hole. It is characterized in that it is housed in a cylinder.

In the illumination device for the counted material of the present invention,
It is preferable that an auxiliary light source is provided, and the auxiliary light source illuminates a predetermined distance inside the end surface of the material to be counted.

Further, in the illuminating device for the material to be counted of the present invention, it is preferable that the luminaire, the image pickup device and the diffusion plate are air-cooled.

Further, in the illuminating device for the material to be counted according to the present invention, it is preferable that the image pickup device and the diffusion plate are air-cooled by factory air.

Further, in the illuminating device for the material to be counted of the present invention, it is preferable that the inner surface of the protective cylinder is black.

[0026]

Since the illuminating device for the material to be counted of the present invention is configured as described above, it becomes possible to uniformly irradiate the end surface of the material to be counted such as a steel bar. Therefore, it is possible to suppress the variation in the amount of light incident on the imaging device due to the state of the end surface of the material to be counted, and it is possible to eliminate the counting error of the material to be counted based on the captured image. That is, the material to be counted can be accurately counted. For example, even if the materials to be counted overlap in a pyramid shape, or if they overlap in another manner, the materials to be counted can be counted accurately.

[0027]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Hereinafter, the present invention will be described based on the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, but the present invention is not limited to such embodiments.

Embodiment 1 An illumination device for a material to be counted according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention (hereinafter,
The illuminating device at the end) is shown in FIGS. In this embodiment, the material to be counted is round steel bar.

The illuminating device 1, as shown in FIGS.
The lighting device 10, the CCD camera (imaging device) 20, and a diffusion plate 30 that diffuses and transmits the irradiation light of the lighting device 10.
A storage box 40 that stores the lighting fixture 10 and the CCD camera 20 and holds the diffusion plate 30 on the front side; a lighting fixture air-cooling device 51 that exhausts the inside of the storage box 40 to cool the lighting fixture 10 by air; A CCD camera air cooling device 52 for air cooling the camera 20 and a diffusion plate air cooling device 53 for air cooling the diffusion plate 30 are provided as main components.

Reference symbol C in the drawing indicates a system provided with this lighting device 1, and reference symbol W indicates a round bar steel.

The illuminator 10 includes linear light sources arranged in a predetermined array, and specifically, is a fluorescent lamp facility 12 including a plurality of (four in the illustrated example) fluorescent lamps 11,
Half of them are vertically arranged with the CCD camera 20 in between. By using the fluorescent lamp facility 12 configured as described above for the lighting fixture 10, it is possible to realize a light source with low cost, low power consumption, and high illuminance.

In order to prevent stray light from the luminaire 10, the CCD camera 20 has a lens (image pickup section) 20a facing forward in a protective cylinder 21 which is vertically provided by penetrating the bottom of the storage box 40. It is arranged. The inner surface of the protective cylinder 21 is black so that unnecessary scattered light does not enter the CCD camera 20.

The diffusing plate 30 uniformly scatters and irradiates the light from the fluorescent lamps 11 and is, for example, a milky white polycarbonate panel. When the diffusion plate 30 is a polycarbonate panel, the lighting equipment air cooling device 5
1 to cool the luminaire 10 and the diffuser plate air-cooling device 53.
By air-cooling the diffusion plate 30, it becomes possible to continuously use the round steel bar even if the temperature is about 300 ° C.

A through hole 31 for penetrating the tip 21a of the protective cylinder 21 is formed at a position of the diffuser plate 30 corresponding to the protective cylinder 21. The through hole 31 has an inner diameter slightly larger than the outer diameter of the protective cylinder 21 to ensure free thermal expansion of the protective cylinder distal end 21a. On the other hand, at the position corresponding to the diffusion plate 30 at the tip 21a of the protection cylinder, as shown in FIG.
Stagger prevention plate 2 to prevent unnecessary stagger of 0
2 and 23 are formed in a brim shape with a pair of predetermined intervals. This distance is adjusted so as to ensure free thermal expansion of the protective cylinder tip 21a and prevent unnecessary fluctuation of the diffusion plate 30. For example, the anti-vibration plate 22 located in the front is positioned to abut the surface of the diffusion plate 30 during cold, while the anti-vibration plate 2 located in the rear.
3 is a position that comes into contact with the back surface of the diffusion plate 30 when hot.

The storage box 40 has an L-shaped cross section for holding the storage box main body 41 having an open upper surface and the outer peripheral portion 30a of the diffusion plate 30.
The frame-shaped frame member 42 is provided. In this case, the inner dimension of the frame member 42 is adjusted to have a predetermined clearance with respect to the outer dimension of the storage box body 41.

The inner surface of the storage box body 41 is preferably a mirror surface from the viewpoint of reflecting the irradiation light from the luminaire 10 and effectively utilizing it for illuminating the round steel bar W. Also, the bottom surface 4
At the center of 1a, as described above, the protection tube 21 is provided with the tip 21a.
Is fixed to the upper surface.

The upper end surface of the storage box body 41 has a lip 43 as shown in FIG. Diffusion plate 3 on this lip 43
The outer peripheral portion 30a of 0 is placed, and in that state, the frame member 42 is fitted and the diffusion plate 30 is attached to the storage box 40. In this case, in order to ensure thermal expansion and thermal deformation of the diffusion plate 30, as shown in FIG.
A heat-resistant cushion material 44, for example, rock wool is attached to a. Instead of the cushion material 44, as shown in FIG. 7, arc-shaped springs 45 may be provided on the surface of the lip 43 at predetermined intervals to ensure thermal expansion and thermal deformation of the diffusion plate 30.

Further, as shown in FIG. 8, a connection window 46 with the lighting equipment air-cooling device 51 is provided at an appropriate position, for example, in the center of the one side surface 41b of the storage box body 41. In addition, although not shown, at an appropriate position of the storage box main body 41,
A penetrating portion for wiring to the lighting fixture 10 is also provided.

The lighting equipment air-cooling device 51 is, for example, an exhaust fan 51A, and its suction port 51a is connected to a connection window 46 provided on one side surface 41b of the storage box body 41. Then, the storage box body 4 is formed by the exhaust fan 51A.
The luminaire 10 is cooled by exhausting the air inside.

The CCD camera air cooling device 52 is, for example, a blower fan 52A, and is attached to the storage box body 41 at an appropriate position above the CCD camera 20.
By blowing air toward 0, the CCD camera 20 is cooled.

The diffuser plate air-cooling device 53 is, for example, a blower fan 53A, is attached to the storage box main body 41 at an appropriate position above the upper end of the diffuser plate 30, and blows air toward the surface of the diffuser plate 30 from there. Is cooled.

Instead of providing the CCD camera air cooling device 52 and the diffuser plate air cooling device 53, as shown in FIG.
A factory air discharge unit 55 is provided at an appropriate position above the CCD camera 20 and an appropriate position above the upper end of the diffusion plate 30, and from there, the factory air is dispersed and jetted to the CCD camera 20 and the diffusion plate 30 and the CCD camera 20 and the diffusion plate. You may make it air-cool 30.

By configuring the lighting device 1 as described above, the effective size of the diffusion plate 30 is 600 mm × 60.
When set to 0 mm, the image processing area is 200 mm x 150
mm, the imaging distance is 600 mm, and the illumination distance (shortest distance) is 500 mm, it is possible to image up to an angle of about 5 degrees even if the end surface of the round steel bar W is a mirror surface.

As described above, the lighting device 1 according to the first embodiment
According to this, it becomes possible to uniformly irradiate the end surface of the round steel bar W. Therefore, the CCD caused by the state of the end surface of the round steel bar W
It is possible to suppress the variation in the amount of light incident on the camera 20, and it is possible to eliminate the counting error of the round steel bar W based on the captured image. That is, the round bar W can be accurately counted. For example, even if the round steel bars W are overlapped in a pyramid shape or in another manner, the round steel bars W can be accurately counted. Also, it is possible to support on-line counting.

Embodiment 2 An illumination device according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention is schematically shown in FIG. The illumination device 1A of the second embodiment is obtained by modifying the illumination device 1 of the first embodiment, and as shown in FIG. 10, in addition to the illumination device 1 of the first embodiment, the illumination device 1 described above.
The light source 2A that supplements the light amount of That is, the main lighting device 1 and the auxiliary lighting device 2 are provided. The irradiation position of the auxiliary lighting device 2 is a predetermined distance inside from the end surface of the round steel bar W.

In the second embodiment, the auxiliary lighting device 2 is provided, and the irradiation position thereof is set to a predetermined inner distance from the end surface of the round steel bar W, for example, 400 mm to 800 mm, so that the end position of the round steel bar W is displaced (for example, 500 mm).
Even if the above displacement occurs, the round bar W can be accurately counted.

Although the present invention has been described above based on the embodiments, the present invention is not limited to such embodiments and various modifications can be made.

For example, in the embodiment, the material to be counted is a round bar steel, but the material to be counted is not limited to the round bar steel and may be steel materials of various shapes. Further, the size of the lighting device can be appropriately adjusted according to the image area to be processed.

[0049]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention,
An excellent effect is obtained in that the end surface of the material to be counted, such as round bar steel, can be uniformly irradiated. Therefore, it is possible to suppress variations in the amount of light incident on the imaging device due to the state of the end surface of the material to be counted, and it is possible to obtain an excellent effect that the counting error of the material to be counted based on the captured image can be eliminated.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system including an illumination device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the illumination device of the same embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a side view of the same.

4 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line AA of FIG.

FIG. 5 is a detailed view of an engaging portion between a diffusion plate and a protection cylinder.

FIG. 6 is a detailed view of an end portion of the diffusion plate attached to the storage box.

FIG. 7 is a detailed view of an end portion of a diffusion plate attached to a storage box according to another mode.

FIG. 8 is a detailed view of a connecting portion of the lighting equipment air cooling device of the storage box.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a modified example of the illumination device of the first embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of a system including an illumination device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a schematic perspective view of an example of a conventional round bar steel counter.

FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram of a captured image captured by a CCD shutter camera of the same device.

FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram of a captured image captured by the same CCD shutter camera in a state where round steel bars are piled up in a pyramid shape in the vicinity of an end portion on the transport table side.

[Explanation of symbols]

1,1A lighting device 2 Auxiliary lighting device 10 Lighting equipment 11 fluorescent light 12 Fluorescent light equipment 20 CCD camera (imaging device) 21 Protective tube 30 diffuser 30a outer peripheral part 31 through hole 40 storage boxes 41 Storage box body 42 Frame member 51 Lighting fixture air cooling system 52 CCD camera air cooling device 53 Diffuser air cooling system

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A fluorescent lamp facility comprising a lighting fixture, an image pickup device, and a diffuser plate for diffusing and transmitting the irradiation light from the lighting fixture, wherein the lighting fixture includes a fluorescent lamp group in a predetermined arrangement. And a through hole is formed substantially in the center of the diffusion plate, and the image pickup unit of the image pickup device is housed in a protective cylinder whose tip is projected from the through hole. Lighting equipment. 2. The illuminating device for the material to be counted according to claim 1, further comprising an auxiliary light source, wherein the auxiliary light source illuminates a predetermined distance inside the end surface of the material to be counted. 3. The illuminating device for the counted material according to claim 1, wherein the illuminating device, the imaging device and the diffusion plate are air-cooled. 4. The illuminating device for the counted material according to claim 3, wherein air cooling of the image pickup device and the diffusion plate is performed by factory air. 5. The illuminating device for the counted material according to claim 1, wherein the inner surface of the protective cylinder is black.