JP2013148547A - Cylindrical inspection device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a cylindrical inspection device capable of determining a filled state of a content filled inside, with a simple structure, without being affected by variations in shapes or colors of cylindrical bodies.SOLUTION: An inspection device 20 inspects a filled state of a content that is injected into a cylindrical body from one end side to the other end side to produce a product as an object S to be inspected in which the cylindrical body and the content have different transmittances for near-infrared light. The inspection device comprises: a light source 21 for irradiating an area including at least an estimated beginning position of the content at the other end side with near-infrared light; imaging means 22 that is arranged on a side opposite to the light source with the cylindrical body S being sandwiched therebetween and that areally images near-infrared light transmitted through the cylindrical body; and determination means 23 for determining a filled state of the content on the basis of an image taken by the imaging means.

Description

  The present invention relates to an inspection apparatus that inspects a cylindrical body using near-infrared light. More specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus for inspecting a product (article) in which a hollow cylindrical body is filled with contents, and in particular, the content of a so-called variation in the shape and color of the cylindrical body is not constant. The present invention relates to an apparatus for inspecting a filling state of an object.

  As a cylindrical product filled with contents (contents), for example, a confectionery in the form of an elongated stick is well known. This type of confectionery is made into a product by filling chocolate or the like as contents (contents) inside a cookie or biscuit cylinder baked into a thin cylinder, for example. In such a product, the contents (chocolate etc.) are filled in a cylinder of a cylindrical body (that is, a stick-shaped cookie or biscuit) with a predetermined amount, that is, a predetermined amount as an inspection item at the time of manufacture. A product inspection (filling state inspection) is performed. If a product that is not filled in a predetermined amount is detected in this inspection, it is excluded as a nonstandard product. By such product management, the user's product can be trusted.

The contents in the above are filled by injecting fluid chocolate or the like from one end side of a stick-shaped confectionery that is a cylindrical body using a predetermined filling device. Therefore, there is no worry of insufficient filling of the contents on one end side (injection side) to be filled. However, at the other end side (extruded side), it is required that excessive contents are not injected and flowed out, and the contents are filled to a predetermined position.
About this, by injecting so that the top position of the injected contents (hereinafter referred to as the filling boundary position) is within a predetermined length (dimension) from the end on the other end side, Satisfy the filling requirements of the contents. Therefore, conventionally, the filling state inspection of the contents is performed by confirming whether or not the contents are present within a predetermined length from the end on the other end side.

  The filling state inspection as described above is based on the assumption that the filling boundary position is predicted based on the assumption that the cylindrical body of cookies or biscuits constituting the outside has transparency or semi-transmission with respect to visible light. A technique is known in which visible light is irradiated to the surroundings, and the transmitted light and reflected light are analyzed using an image processing technique to confirm the filling state of the contents. For this, a strong spot light is irradiated from the side surface around the filling boundary position, and the content is detected by using a photosensor having a light receiving unit that receives the light on the opposite side, or a white light source (visible light) The light source is irradiated to the periphery of the filling boundary position of the cylindrical body that is the object to be inspected, and the contents detected are detected by image processing analysis of transmitted light and reflected light leaking from the inside. It was.

  Furthermore, the inventor of the present invention has previously proposed an inspection apparatus improved so as to confirm the filling state of the contents using a color image. This inspection device irradiates visible light from two light sources on the end face and side face of a cylindrical body (stick-like confectionery) to be inspected, and fills the contents by imaging the end face side with a color camera. It is improved so that the state can be judged reliably.

JP 2004-317347 A

However, when the cylindrical body to be inspected is a stick-shaped cookie or biscuit as described above, the so-called “warp” in the outer shape, the so-called “baking unevenness (color unevenness)” in the outer appearance (hereinafter referred to as these) Naturally, this may occur as product variation). Therefore, it is difficult to accurately confirm the state of the contents filled in the cylinder of such a cylindrical body. Conventionally, as described above, visible light is irradiated around the filling boundary position, and the contents are confirmed using the transmitted light or reflected light.
However, since there is a limit to the transmittance of visible light, the detection accuracy is limited even if the filling boundary position of the contents is irradiated with high accuracy. And as pointed out above, cookies and biscuits, which are baked confectionery, are frequently warped, so the filling boundary position becomes unstable. In an inspection apparatus that detects contents using light leaking from an end face, if the direction of the end face is unstable, the detection becomes extremely difficult.

The technical problems as described above have been recognized in the past, and there has been a demand for irradiating light from a side surface of a cylindrical body over a wide range and determining the filling state of contents using an area image on the side surface. In this way, even if the tubular body is deformed such as warping, the contents of the tubular body can be detected from an area image that includes the periphery of the filling boundary position.
However, as mentioned above, visible light has low transparency, so side surface inspection is extremely difficult, and it is estimated that X-rays can be used, but it is difficult to implement from the viewpoint of introduction cost and maintenance. It was.

  An object of the present invention is to provide an inspection apparatus for a cylindrical body that is not affected by variations in the shape and color of the cylindrical body, and that can determine the filling state of the contents filled therein with a simple configuration. It is to be.

The above-mentioned object is an article in which contents are injected into the inside of a cylindrical body from one end side to the other end side, and the cylindrical body and the contents have different transmittances for near-infrared light. An inspection apparatus for inspecting a filling state of the contents, using a thing as an inspection object,
A light source that irradiates near infrared rays in an area so as to include at least the expected position of the beginning of the contents on the other end side, and is disposed on the opposite side of the light source with the cylindrical body in between, Imaging means for imaging near-infrared rays transmitted through the cylindrical body in an area; and determination means for determining the filling state of the contents based on an image captured by the imaging means. This is achieved by the cylindrical inspection device characterized in claim 1.

  Then, the determination means processes the image captured by the imaging means to form a side image of the cylindrical body, and the presence / absence of contents by the side image formed by the image processing signal section It can be formed by the determination part which determines this (Claim 2). The imaging means may be a monochrome camera.

  Moreover, the said cylindrical body is a baked confectionery of the hollow stick which consists of a cookie or a biscuit, and the said content can be made into the fluid confectionery which can be inject | poured in the said baked confectionery (Claim 4). Further, the contents may have a color having a transmittance of near-infrared light lower than that of the cylindrical body (Claim 5).

In the cylindrical body inspection apparatus according to the present invention, the near-infrared ray having a higher transmittance than the visible ray is included in the area from the side so that the predicted position of the beginning of the content (the position where the filling boundary position described above is expected) is included. Irradiate and detect the contents based on a side image obtained by area-imaging the transmitted light of the near infrared light. By using near-infrared light, the contents can be detected with little influence from variations in the shape, thickness, and color of the cylindrical body.
According to the present invention, it is possible to reliably detect the presence or absence of the contents of a cylindrical body with variation by simply changing the area to be irradiated with near-infrared rays instead of conventional visible rays. It is possible to provide a cylindrical body inspection apparatus capable of accurately determining the state.

It is the schematic block diagram which showed the principal part of the manufacturing apparatus with which the inspection apparatus which concerns on this invention was applied as an inspection part. It is the perspective view which showed the principal part structure of the test | inspection part periphery of FIG. It is sectional drawing shown in order to show the principal part structure of the test | inspection part formed with the inspection apparatus of the cylindrical body which concerns on this invention, and the mode of a test | inspection. It is the figure which showed the mode of the to-be-inspected object when image | photographed with the near-infrared ray typically, (a) is the figure which showed the mode when not using near-infrared light, (b) is the case by near-infrared light It is the figure which showed the mode of.

Hereinafter, an inspection apparatus according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a main part of a manufacturing apparatus 10 for manufacturing a stick-shaped confectionery, in which a cylindrical body inspection apparatus according to the present invention is applied to an inspection section.
In this figure, S is an object to be inspected. The object S to be inspected is formed by baking and hardening a cookie or a biscuit as an elongated hollow cylindrical body (stick), and the contents of a cream having fluidity from one end side thereof (here, a common one) Neat black chocolate) is made into a product. The inspected object S is manufactured in a pre-process (not shown), and one by one is sequentially loaded on an endless conveyor 11 and is sent to an inspection unit 20 to which the present invention described later is applied. It is. The conveyor 11 plays a role of conveying the inspection object S side by side to the inspection unit 20 one by one. The conveyor 11 is continuously rotated in one direction by a motor (not shown).

Further, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a main configuration around the inspection unit 20.
The inspected objects S that are conveyed side by side by the conveyor 11 are aligned by the inspected object alignment mechanism 12 at the positions of the end surfaces of the inspected objects S. The device alignment mechanism 12 includes an endless belt 12a and a pulley 12b around which the belt 12a is wound. The belt 12a is driven to rotate at a speed equal to the moving speed of the conveyor 11 by a driving source (not shown). The inspection object S in which the position of one end surface Sa is aligned in this way is conveyed by the conveyor 11 and sent to the inspection unit 20. And the test | inspection part 20 test | inspects the state of the end surface Sa (end surface on the other end side opposite to the one end side which inject | pours the contents into a cylindrical body) of the cylindrical body conveyed by the conveyor 11. . The cylindrical body inspection apparatus according to the present invention that constitutes the inspection unit 20 includes a light source 21 that irradiates near-infrared rays in an area so as to include at least the expected position of the top of the filled contents, and an inspection object S (cylindrical shape). A monochrome camera 22 as an image pickup means that is arranged on the opposite side of the light source 21 and picks up near-infrared rays that have passed through the object S to be imaged in the area. Determination means 23 for determining the filling state of the contents based on the above.
In FIG. 2, the state in which the periphery of the end portion of the end surface Sa of the inspection object S located under the light source 21 is deformed among the inspection objects S illustrated as a plurality, that is, the above-described product variation is also included. It is shown.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing the configuration of the main part of the inspection unit 20 and the state of inspection by the inspection apparatus of the present invention. As shown in the drawing, the near-infrared ray nIR is area-irradiated at the end of the inspection object (tubular body) S so that the light source 21 includes at least the expected position TP where the head of the contents to be filled is expected. Are arranged as follows. Since the near-infrared ray nIR is superior to the visible ray in the transmission of the article, the near-infrared ray nIR includes at least the expected position TP within the area irradiation range RE of the light source, and further irradiates the periphery of the end portion on the end surface Sa side of the cylindrical body. If possible, inspection can be performed with one light source. Therefore, for example, as shown in the figure, one light source 21 may be disposed between the position of the end surface Sa on the other end side and the expected position TP of the contents in the orientation in which the side surface Sb of the inspection object S is irradiated. . However, the light source 21 in FIG. 3 is simply and schematically shown, and one light source device including a plurality of point light sources may be adopted as the light source 21. In this case, a light source device in which point light sources are arranged in a line along the longitudinal direction (axial direction) of the inspected object S having a stick shape can be suitably employed.
The light source 21 only needs to be a light source including at least near-infrared rays, and a white light source including other wavelengths can also be employed. As the light source 21, for example, an LED (Light Emitting Diode) that generates near-infrared rays can be preferably used.

A monochrome camera 22 is provided as an image pickup means that is arranged on the opposite side of the light source 21 with the object to be inspected (cylindrical body) S therebetween and images near-infrared rays transmitted through the object S to be inspected in the area. It has been.
The monochrome camera 22 takes an area image of near-infrared light emitted from the light source 21 and transmitted around the end portion including the expected position TP of the inspection object S. Incidentally, the shutter timing of the monochrome camera 22 is set when the inspection object S reaches the imaging region of the monochrome camera 22 by an encoder (not shown) or the like.
The monochrome camera 22 is preferable in that it can be obtained at a relatively low cost as a means for imaging near-infrared rays. If the light source 21 described above is a light source with only near infrared light, the captured image can be used as it is. However, when the light source 21 includes light having a wavelength other than near-infrared light, the light is incident on the monochrome camera 22 through a filter that removes unnecessary light. That is, the imaging means in the present invention is a means for imaging only the near-infrared ray that has passed through the cylindrical body.

The image data of the monochrome camera 22 is supplied to the judging means 23. The determination means 23 determines the filling state of the contents based on the area image on the side face of the monochrome camera 22. This is to detect the contents based on the fact that the outer cylindrical body and the contents filled therein have different transmittances for near-infrared light and the difference appears in the side image. is there.
In this example, the content is the most popular black chocolate. Black chocolate has a lower transmittance to near-infrared light than cookies or biscuits that form a cylindrical body, so that these can be easily distinguished and detected based on the image of the monochrome camera 22 taken in the area. The filling state of the object can be judged.
As shown in FIG. 1, the determination means 23 is formed by an image processing signal section 24 that processes an image captured by the imaging section to form a side image of the cylindrical body, and the image processing signal section 24. It can be formed by the determination unit 25 that determines the presence / absence of contents from the side image. The image processing signal unit 24 and the presence / absence determination unit 25 can be formed using a known image forming technique.

Near-infrared light is an invisible electromagnetic wave having a wavelength of approximately 0.7 to 2.5 μm and a wavelength close to that of red visible light, and also having properties close to that of visible light. The near-infrared light having the above-described structure S to be inspected, ie, a cylindrical body made of baked confectionery (cookies or biscuits) on the outside and filled with chocolate (in this example, black chocolate). It is as follows when it inspects using.
In addition, when the object to be inspected is baked confectionery as illustrated, and the content is a dark and low-luminance color such as black chocolate, the preferred near-infrared ray wavelength is 0.7 to 1.4 μm. More preferable wavelength is 0.7 to 0.9 μm.

The side image generated by the image processing signal unit 24 and the state of determination executed by the determination unit 23 provided with the presence / absence determination unit 25 that determines the presence / absence of contents in the side image are outlined below.
Near-infrared light is more transparent than visible light. Therefore, when near-infrared light is irradiated from the outside of the inspected object S, it passes through the outer cylindrical body and reliably reaches the inside (inside the cylinder), and the contents having low transparency to the near-infrared light inside the cylinder Can be detected.
FIG. 4A is a diagram schematically showing three test objects A, B, and C. Each has a different external shape, and the shape and color do not match. Here, for easy understanding of the invention, cross sections of the inspected objects A, B, and C are schematically shown, but it is difficult to confirm the inside of an actual stick under visible light. In the drawing, the cross section of the cylindrical body S-1 of the object to be inspected is hatched, and the internal content (black chocolate) S-2 is indicated by a lattice.

In the illustration of FIG. 4A, the inspected object A is a cylindrical body whose contents are not filled in the cylinder, that is, a hollow stick made of cookies or biscuits. Therefore, this inspected object A should be a defective product. Further, the inspection object B is not sufficiently filled with black chocolate from the end Sa to a predetermined length inside the cylindrical body. Therefore, this is also a defective product with poor filling.
On the other hand, the object C to be inspected is an acceptable product in which black chocolate is filled in the cylindrical body from the end Sa to a predetermined length.
Thus, despite the fact that the product to be inspected is only the object C to be inspected, it is necessary to confirm the state of the contents in the past due to the limitations of the shape and color variation of the product and the use of visible light. It was difficult.

On the other hand, FIG. 4B schematically shows a state of a side area image obtained by irradiating the three inspected objects A, B, and C with near-infrared light in the area and based on the transmitted light. FIG. In FIG. 4B, the outer cylindrical body S-1 is indicated by a dotted line, but in imaging with near infrared light, the cylindrical body becomes an image that can be confirmed as thin as a shadow.
As shown in this figure, according to the inspection apparatus for inspecting from the side surface of the object to be inspected using the near infrared light of the present invention, the internal contents S-2 can be detected with high accuracy. This is because the near-infrared light is not affected by the variation of the cylindrical body, passes through it and reaches the inside of the cylinder, and the contents having a color with a low transmittance inside thereof (such as black chocolate) This is because the side image is picked up by the image pickup means when there is a dark color with a low luminance.

By the way, although not shown in FIG. 4, in addition to the variation form generated in the product pointed out above, there is a form in which the end opening of the cylindrical body is blocked by the material (cracker or biscuit) itself when baked. is there. When the cylindrical body in the form in which the end opening is closed is the object to be inspected S, in the conventional inspection apparatus, since the opening is closed, there is a possibility that the content is erroneously determined.
However, according to the inspection apparatus of the present invention, the area including the filling boundary position is confirmed by the area image using near infrared light, so that the contents in the cylindrical body can be accurately detected as described above, The suitability of the filling state of the body contents can be determined.

When injecting chocolate into a cylindrical body with one end closed as described above, the opposite side is closed, which often results in poor filling. In such a case, the content is within a predetermined length from the closed end. Because there is no product (black chocolate), it is a rejected product. However, even if it is a closed end, if the content (black chocolate) is filled from the closed end to a predetermined length, there is no problem even if it is an acceptable product. The case described here cannot be judged at all from the appearance of the object to be inspected, and it has been extremely difficult to detect it with a conventional inspection apparatus.
However, according to the inspection apparatus shown in FIGS. 1 to 3, the contents can be accurately detected using near-infrared light that is not affected by the variation of the cylindrical body. Thus, the pass / fail of the object S can be determined.

  As described above, according to the cylindrical body inspection apparatus of the present invention, near-infrared rays that are more transmissive than visible rays are irradiated from the side surface, and this is imaged in the area. The contents of the cylindrical body are detected from the side. This inspection apparatus has a relatively simple configuration and can accurately detect the presence or absence of contents without being affected by variations in the cylindrical body. Therefore, according to the inspection apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to provide a cylindrical body inspection apparatus that can reliably determine the filling state of the contents.

In addition, this invention is not limited to embodiment mentioned above.
For example, in the above-described embodiment, the baked confectionery containing black chocolate having a lower transmittance for near-infrared light than the cylindrical body is used as the object to be inspected. It is also possible to detect white chocolate having a higher transmittance for near-infrared light than a cylindrical body based on the difference in transmittance for near-infrared light.
Moreover, although the above-described embodiment has been described as an inspection apparatus suitable for inspecting the contents filled in the stick-shaped baked confectionery, the present invention is not limited to this, and the predetermined contents are placed in the cylindrical body as described above. It may be applied to other articles to be packed.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Manufacturing apparatus 11 Conveyor 12 Inspection object alignment mechanism 20 Inspection part (inspection apparatus of a cylindrical body)
21 light source 22 monochrome camera (imaging means)
23 Judgment means 24 Image processing signal section 25 Presence / absence determination section S Inspection object S-1 Cylindrical body S-2 Contents Sa End face (End face on the other end side opposite to the contents injection)
nIR near infrared light

Claims (5)

An article in which contents are injected into the inside of a cylindrical body from one end side toward the other end, and the cylindrical body and the contents have different transmittances for near-infrared light As an inspection apparatus for inspecting the filling state of the contents,
A light source that irradiates an area with near-infrared rays so as to include at least a predicted position of the top of the contents on the other end side;
An imaging means that is arranged on the opposite side of the light source with the cylindrical body in between, and picks up near-infrared rays transmitted through the cylindrical body in an area;
An inspection apparatus for a cylindrical body, comprising: a determination unit that determines a filling state of the contents based on an image captured by the imaging unit.   The determination unit determines whether or not there is a content by processing an image captured by the imaging unit to form a side image of the cylindrical body and the side image formed by the image processing signal unit. The cylindrical body inspection apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a determination unit that performs the inspection.   The cylindrical body inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the imaging unit is a monochrome camera.   The said cylindrical body is a baked confectionery of the hollow stick which consists of a cookie or a biscuits, and the said content is a fluid confectionery which can be inject | poured in the said baked confectionery. The cylindrical body inspection apparatus according to any one of the above.   The cylindrical inspection apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the contents have a color with a transmittance of near infrared light lower than that of the cylindrical body.

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