JP2009236855A - Inspection apparatus and inspection technique - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an inspection technique and apparatus assuring sealing intensity by inspecting sealing breadth to identify seal failure resulted in leakage of content and the like regardless of materials, figurations, and colors of saclike packaging containers with sealing parts processed by pressing to enclose liquid or gas. <P>SOLUTION: The inspection technique and apparatus are characterized by possessing a moving means moving saclike packaging containers with sealing parts processed by pressing, a guiding means, a light irradiating means, imaging means, an imagery processing means processing imagery data, a displaying means displaying dimensional data of sealing parts, a measuring means measuring dimension of sealing parts, and a determining means determining right and wrong of sealing parts such that the measured result concerned is assumed as a basic dimension of the sealing parts and a result measured from the dimension of sealing parts is assumed as an inspection dimension to compare the basic dimension and the inspection dimension, and displays the determined result concerned on the displaying means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention is to inspect the seal width for a seal failure that may lead to leakage of contents without being restricted by the material, shape, and color of a packaging container that encloses a liquid or gas having a seal part that has been crimped. Thus, an inspection method and apparatus for ensuring the seal strength is provided.

  Examples of the packaging container that encloses the liquid or gas having the seal part subjected to the pressure-bonding process include a refilling container such as a food packaging or shampoo.

  Many of these packaging containers for sealing liquid or gas having a sealed seal part use a film member, and are formed by crimping the end part, and if the crimping process is insufficient, The seal part peels or breaks due to pressure or the like, causing problems such as leakage of the contents or deterioration of the contents themselves.

  For this reason, inspection at the manufacturing stage of the packaging container is indispensable, but this inspection has been performed by visual inspection from the past, but it is difficult to detect by visual inspection, and there are problems such as differences in the individual ability of the inspector. For this reason, there was a need to inspect with an inspection device.

  In order to solve this problem, many illumination methods such as Patent Document 1 have been proposed in automatic inspection in which inspection is performed from an image acquired by a camera or the like. However, in transparent illumination, a transparent container can be used, but the packaging container is often subjected to color printing in order to have design properties, and the inspection cannot be replaced with an apparatus. Also, many packaging containers have a barrier layer such as aluminum vapor deposition or aluminum foil for the purpose of protecting the contents from moisture and oxygen. Therefore, the difference in reflectance between the seal portion and the portion other than the seal portion is large, and no solution has been reached for inspecting fine irregularities in the seal portion.

In Patent Document 2, dark field illumination is performed by a laser. However, in a packaging container that encloses a liquid or a gas having a pressure-bonded seal portion, the laser has a narrow field of view and has a problem of having time until detection. There is no, and it has not reached the inspection of all products.
JP2007-327761 JP2007-218830

  The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and leads to leakage of contents without being restricted by the material, shape, and color of a packaging container that encloses a liquid or gas having a pressure-bonded seal portion. It is an object of the present invention to provide an inspection method and apparatus for performing such seal failure by inspecting the seal width and ensuring the seal strength.

Therefore, the invention according to claim 1 of the present invention includes a moving means for moving a bag-like packaging container having a pressure-bonded seal portion, a light irradiation means for irradiating light to the packaging container, and the packaging Imaging means for imaging reflected light from the container, guide means for deforming the packaging container into a convex shape, image processing means for processing image data imaged by the imaging means, and processing by the image processing means Display means for displaying the dimension data of the sealed part, means for measuring the dimension of the seal part from the dimension data obtained from the image processing means, the measurement result as a reference dimension of the seal part, and Means for determining the quality of the seal part by comparing the reference dimension and the inspection dimension with the result measured from the dimension of the seal part obtained from the image processing means as the inspection dimension; The determination result is to provide an inspection method and apparatus and displaying on the display means.

  The invention according to claim 2 provides the inspection apparatus for a packaging container according to claim 1, which has a gas ejection function for blowing gas to the seal portion of the packaging container. .

The invention according to claim 3 provides the inspection apparatus for a packaging container according to claim 1, wherein the light irradiation means uses light in an ultraviolet region.
The invention according to claim 4 is characterized in that the light source is arranged perpendicular to the flow direction of the packaging container moved by the moving means, and is arranged horizontally with the packaging container to irradiate the seal portion. A packaging container inspection device according to claim 1 is provided.

  The invention according to claim 5 is characterized in that the imaging means is arranged perpendicular to the light source and perpendicular to the flow direction of the packaging container moved by the moving means. A packaging container inspection apparatus is provided.

The invention according to claim 6 is characterized in that the seal portion is irradiated with light from the light source, and the scattered light on the surface of the packaging container is imaged. A device is provided.
The invention according to claim 7 is an inspection method characterized by using the inspection device according to any one of claims 1 to 6 to determine the quality of the seal portion.

  According to the inspection method and apparatus of the present invention, the moving means for moving the bag-shaped packaging container having the seal portion subjected to the pressure-bonding process, the guide means for deforming the packaging container into a convex shape, and the packaging container Processed by the image processing means, the image processing means for processing the image data picked up by the image pickup means, the light irradiation means for irradiating the light, the image pickup means for picking up the reflected light from the packaging container Display means for displaying the dimension data of the seal part, means for measuring the dimension of the seal part from the dimension data obtained from the image processing means, the measurement result as a reference dimension of the seal part, and further the image processing The result measured from the dimensions of the seal part obtained from the means is used as the inspection dimension, and by comparing the reference dimension and the inspection dimension, the quality of the width of the seal part is determined to be good, Management has been sealed portion made of the packaging container enclosing a liquid or a gas having a shape, that without being bound by color, it is possible to detect the defective seal that could lead to such leakage of the contents.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an outline of a packaging container which is an inspection object in this embodiment. At both ends of the packaging container 101 which is an inspection object, there are pressure-bonded seal portions 102. The object to be inspected has a winding shape as shown in FIG. 1, but it may be a single wafer shape and the shape is not limited. Although the packaging container in this embodiment used the film raw material and used the packaging container which sealed the edge part by the thermocompression-bonding process, if it is a packaging container which has a seal part, it will be limited to the kind of a raw material and a sealing process. It is not a thing. In addition, packaging containers are often provided with a functional layer such as aluminum vapor deposition or aluminum foil for the purpose of protecting the contents from moisture and oxygen. It is not limited to the type or presence.
FIG. 2 shows an outline of the inspection apparatus of the present invention. Packaging container 101 is stage 1 in the direction of the arrow
03 continuously moves. At this time, the packaging container is unwound and moved while being tensioned by the take-up roll. There is a guide portion 104 on the stage. The light source 110 is arranged orthogonal to the flow direction of the packaging container moved by the moving means, and is arranged horizontally with the packaging container. The imaging camera 106 is arranged orthogonal to the light source and orthogonal to the flow direction of the packaging container moved by the moving means. The imaging area 105 is imaged by an imaging camera. Air is blown from the air compressor 107 through the ejection port 109 to the imaging area. An image captured by the imaging camera is read into the image processing unit 111 using an image data read signal from the control unit 108 as a trigger. The period of the image data read signal output from the control unit is determined by the moving speed of the packaging container, the clock frequency of the imaging camera, and the number of pixels. The image data is processed by the image processing unit 111. The result processed by the image processing means is displayed on the display unit 112. At this time, the packaging container 101 is not limited to the winding shape, and may be a single wafer shape. The conveying method in this case is intermittently moved by gripping the front and rear ends of the packaging container in place of the unwinding roll and the winding roll with grips.

  The packaging container 101 that has moved on the stage 103 is deformed into a convex shape by the guide portion 104 installed on the stage. At this time, the apex of the guide part is preferably curved so as not to damage the packaging container 101. In the inspection method of the winding form packaging container, since the packaging container is continuous in the advancing direction, the guide part has an oblique shape, but the guide part in the case of a single wafer form packaging container has a convex shape. good.

  When dust or dirt adheres to the seal portion 102 of the packaging container 101, the image data of the seal portion is different from the image data of the true seal portion due to the influence of the dust or dust. For this reason, during imaging, air and dust are always ejected from the air ejection port 109 via the compressor 107, thereby removing dust and dirt adhering to the seal portion of the packaging container. It is preferable to install a filter in the compressor to eject air that does not contain dust and dirt. Moreover, although air was used in this embodiment, it should just be gas and is not limited to air.

  An ultraviolet light source is used as the light source 110. Thereby, even if the seal part 102 of the packaging container 101 is the same material and the same color, the inspection can be performed. At this time, the wavelength region of the light source may be any wavelength region as long as it is in the ultraviolet region, but it is preferable to use the near ultraviolet region.

  FIG. 3 shows an enlarged view near the imaging area. The sealing part 102 of the packaging container enters the imaging area 105 by the imaging camera 106 in a state where the packaging container 101 has a convex shape. Although it is preferable that the seal portion of the packaging container passes through the center of the imaging area as much as possible, it is sufficient that the seal portion of the packaging container is in the imaging area.

  The light source 110 is orthogonal to the imaging camera 106 and is positioned to illuminate the seal portion 102 of the packaging container 101. In order to allow the scattered light of the packaging container to enter the imaging camera 106, it is preferable to install the reflected light from the light source so as not to directly enter the imaging camera 105 as shown in FIG.

  The packaging container 101 is unwound and moves while being tensioned by a take-up roll. For this reason, as shown in FIG. 3, the seal portion 102 does not lift from the stage 103, while the other portions than the seal portion are lifted from the stage by the guide portion 104.

  In the above state, the image of the seal part of the packaging container 101 is acquired by the imaging camera 105. In this case, the imaging camera may be an area recording type imaging unit in which sensor arrays are regularly arranged in a plane, or a line recording type imaging unit in which the sensor array is arranged in a line, and only needs to be able to take an image. Is not to be done.

  The imaging camera 106 that captures the imaging area 105 captures the packaging container 101 and the stage 103, but it is preferable that the stage be black and not glossy in consideration of processing in the image processing unit.

  The image data acquired by the imaging camera 106 is sent to the image processing unit 110, performs image data processing, and then outputs the inspection result to the display unit 112.

  A method for inspecting a captured image by performing image data processing using the apparatus described above will be described.

  FIG. 4 is an image processing flowchart of an image captured by the apparatus according to the present embodiment. This will be described below in accordance with the steps of this flowchart.

  Data is read by causing the image processing unit 111 to read the image data.

  The data read by the image processing unit 111 is subjected to image processing by the image processing unit to calculate the width of the seal portion. The image processing unit performs edge extraction after the smoothing process. At this time, as a known technique, there is an edge extraction technique using Sobel or Roberts. However, the technique is not limited to this as long as the technique can detect edges.

  Next, thinning processing is performed after edge extraction. Although this is also a well-known technique, the edge portion is excessively emphasized in edge extraction, and a thinning process is performed because it causes an error when calculating the seal width.

  The projection process is performed after the thinning process. At this time, the direction in which the projection process is performed is determined based on the direction of data captured by the imaging camera 106. That is, the direction of projection processing is determined in the width direction of the seal. For example, when the horizontal direction of scanning of the imaging camera is the width direction of the packaging container, the horizontal data of the imaging camera is set as the direction of projection processing.

  After the projection process, the number of pixels between edges is calculated. The measurement location after the projection processing is shown in FIG. FIG. 5 shows a seal edge detection diagram. The number of pixels between the peak values (a) and (b) corresponds to the width of the seal portion of the packaging container 101 imaged by the imaging camera. Therefore, the number of pixels is measured, and the dimension value on the packaging container per pixel input in advance is automatically multiplied by the image processing unit to calculate the seal width.

  By performing the calculation up to the above in the image processing unit 111 and sending the calculation result to the display unit 112, the seal width of the packaging container 101 can be displayed on the display unit 111 in units of one sensor array. The calculation result is displayed in the number of pixels of the sensor array as described above, and further, by measuring the seal width per pixel in the sensor array in advance, the actual size of the seal width is converted and measured. Can be displayed.

  Whether the seal width of the packaging container is good or bad is determined based on the preset seal width dimension or the number of pixels of the imaging camera as a reference value, and when the calculated result is smaller than the reference value, a defective seal is displayed on the display unit.

Next, examples of the present invention will be described. In this example, a film material was used as a packaging container, and a packaging container having an end portion sealed by thermocompression treatment was used. The total width of the packaging container is 100 mm, and the width of the seal portion is 10 mm.
The packaging container is unwound and stage 10 while being tensioned by a take-up roll
3 Move in the direction of the arrow. The moving speed was 1 m per second. The imaging camera used was a 512 pixel line recording imaging camera with a clock frequency of 1 megahertz. In this case, the imaging camera is not limited to the line recording type imaging camera but may be an area recording type imaging camera.

  The field of view of the imaging camera was 51.2 mm in the horizontal direction. Moreover, the timing which acquires an image from a control part is input into an imaging camera every 1 millisecond, and an image is acquired. As a result, every time the packaging container advances 1 mm, 512 images of the packaging container advance direction 1 mm * width direction 0.1 mm are obtained from the imaging camera. Especially for the purpose of inspecting the width of the seal, the width direction was made as fine as 0.1 mm per pixel.

  In this embodiment, since the seal width of the packaging container is 10 mm, the reference value is set as 9.7 mm, and a seal width smaller than that is defined as a seal failure.

  Also, an image processing start signal is sent from the control unit 108 to the image processing unit 111 every 0.1 second so that the packaging container can process image data for 100 mm.

  In the imaging area, air was blown from the air compressor 107 through the ejection port 109. During the inspection, the dust and debris adhering to the sealing part of the packaging container were removed by always blowing air from the air outlet through the compressor. A filter was installed in the compressor to blow out air without dust and dirt. The imaging area was illuminated with a light source 110 that emits light in the ultraviolet wavelength region.

  The light source 110 is placed at a position orthogonal to the imaging camera 106 and illuminates the seal portion 102 of the packaging container 101, and reflected light from the light source as shown in FIG. Were installed so as not to enter the imaging camera 105 directly.

  The imaging area is configured such that the sealing portion 102 of the packaging container is inserted in a state where the packaging container 101 has a convex shape in the vicinity of the guide portion 4 in the packaging container moving direction.

  The packaging container 101 is unwound and moves while being tensioned by a take-up roll. For this reason, as shown in FIG. 3, the seal portion 102 does not lift from the stage 103, but the seal portion 102 is lifted from the stage by the guide portion 104 except for the seal portion. Acquired.

  The data read by the image processing unit 111 is subjected to smoothing processing, edge extraction, thinning processing, and projection processing by the image processing unit, and then the number of pixels of the seal width and the seal width calculation are performed, and pass / fail judgment is performed. Is called.

  In the display unit 112, the quality of the seal width of the packaging container 101, the actual size of the seal width, and the number of sensor array pixels corresponding to the seal width are displayed.

  In this way, when the seal part of the thermocompression-bonded packaging container is inspected, there is no erroneous measurement in the seal width measurement due to dust or dust which is a light foreign matter, and the inspection is accurately performed without erroneously inspecting the seal width. I was able to.

Schematic of a packaging container that is an inspection object in the present embodiment Schematic of the inspection apparatus of the present invention Enlarged view near the imaging area Image processing flowchart Seal edge detection diagram

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 Packaging container 102 Stage 103 Guide part 104 Imaging area 105 Imaging camera 106 Air compressor 107 Control part 108 Air outlet 109 Light source 110 Image processing part 111 Display part

Claims (7)

  Moving means for moving a bag-shaped packaging container having a seal portion subjected to pressure bonding, guide means for deforming the packaging container into a convex shape, and light for irradiating light to the packaging container deformed into a convex shape Irradiation means, imaging means for imaging reflected light from the packaging container, image processing means for processing image data captured by the imaging means, and dimension data of the seal portion processed by the image processing means are displayed. Display means, means for measuring the dimension of the seal portion from the dimension data obtained from the image processing means, and the measurement result as a reference dimension of the seal portion, and further the seal portion obtained from the image processing means And determining the quality of the seal part by comparing the reference dimension and the inspection dimension, with the result measured from the dimension as the inspection dimension, and the determination result as the display means. Inspection apparatus and displaying.   2. The inspection device for a packaging container according to claim 1, which has a gas ejection function for blowing gas to the seal portion of the packaging container.   2. The packaging container inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the light irradiation means uses ultraviolet light.   The light source for irradiating the light is disposed perpendicular to the flow direction of the packaging container moved by the moving means, and is disposed horizontally with the packaging container to irradiate the seal portion. The packaging container inspection apparatus according to 1.   2. The packaging container according to claim 1, wherein the imaging unit is arranged orthogonal to a light source for irradiating the light and orthogonal to a flow direction of the packaging container moved by the moving unit. Inspection device.   The packaging container inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the seal portion is irradiated with light from a light source for irradiating the light, and the scattered light on the surface of the packaging container is imaged. An inspection method using the inspection device according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the quality of the seal portion is determined.