JP3063915U - Nori inspection equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Problem] To extract a foreign substance such as a stone or dust attached to the surface of a sheet-shaped dried laver or mixed therein, project the image on a screen, and watch the screen. By removing foreign matter, even if foreign matter is mixed in the nori, it can be reliably removed and regenerated as a good product. SOLUTION: Nori placing plate 3 transparent to infrared light,
An infrared light source 4 that is disposed below the laver mounting plate and irradiates infrared light toward the laver mounting plate; Nori on a plate 10
A CCD camera 6 positioned above the laver mounting plate so as to photograph the laver mounting plate and opposed to the laver mounting plate, and a signal for converting an image signal output from the CCD camera means into a signal for screen display A processing circuit 12 and a liquid crystal display 7 for displaying an image captured by a CCD camera on a screen in accordance with an output signal of the signal processing circuit are provided.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[0001]

[Technical field to which the invention belongs]

 The present invention relates to a laver inspection apparatus, and in particular, extracts a foreign substance such as a stone or dust attached to the surface of a sheet-shaped dried laver or mixed in the image, and projects the image on a screen. The present invention relates to a seaweed inspection device capable of removing foreign matter from seaweed while watching seaweed.

[0002]

[Prior art]

 When making sheet-shaped fixed-size (210 mm x 190 mm) dried laver, in the final step of the production process, inspections for foreign substances such as stones and dust and shape inspections such as tearing are performed. Conventionally, these inspections have been carried out using an in-line inspection machine, and it is common practice to sort out and remove foreign matter-containing products and defective-shaped products separately.

[0003] Sorted defective products can be reused by processing them into strip-shaped laver afterwards, and there is almost no problem in post-processing. After being rejected as a defective product, it could not be reused, causing a serious problem. In other words, foreign substances adhering to the surface of the nori can be easily removed because they can be visually confirmed, but if foreign substances are mixed inside the nori, they cannot be seen from the outside and must be removed. Could not.

Recently, as a foreign matter detection device for this type of nori, a good product is obtained by irradiating infrared light onto the nori, detecting the transmitted light, and automatically determining the presence or absence of foreign matter from the amount of transmitted light. There are also proposals for sorting defective products into defective products (see, for example, JP-A-6-222014). This device utilizes the fact that seaweed is opaque to visible light but translucent to infrared light, so even if foreign matter is mixed inside the seaweed, The quality can be determined.

However, this foreign matter inspection apparatus using infrared light discriminates a non-defective product containing no foreign matter from a defective product containing foreign matter, and automatically sorts the defective product. When reusing the foreign matter-containing product after being sorted as described above, the same problem as described above remains. In other words, even if foreign substances such as stones and dust are removed from the nori after being classified as defective and are to be reclaimed as good nori, it must be done under natural light or visible light such as lighting in a normal working environment. Obviously, foreign substances adhering to the laver surface can be visually confirmed and removed, but if foreign substances have entered the inside of the laver, they cannot be seen from the outside and cannot be removed. The problem remained.

[0006]

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

 The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and image-wise extracts foreign substances such as stones and dust adhering to or adhering to the surface of a sheet of dried laver. By removing foreign matter while viewing the screen, even if foreign matter is mixed in the nori, it can be reliably removed and reproduced as a good product. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a seaweed inspection device that can perform the same.

[0007]

[Means for Solving the Problems]

 As described above, infrared light acts as semi-transparent light with a transmittance of about 50% for laver, but cannot transmit foreign substances such as stones and dust. Therefore, when no foreign matter is mixed in the seaweed, the transmitted image of the seaweed by the infrared light has a uniform brightness image with almost no difference in brightness, but foreign matter such as stones and dust is present. If mixed, the foreign matter appears as a black dot in the uniform luminance image. The device of the present invention has been obtained by utilizing this property of infrared light.

[0008] That is, the present invention is a laver inspection apparatus for detecting foreign matter mixed in a sheet of dried laver, comprising: a laver mounting plate transparent to infrared light; And an infrared light source that irradiates infrared light toward the laver mounting plate, has sensitivity to infrared light, and is mounted on the laver mounting plate. A photographing means positioned above the laver mounting plate so as to photograph the laver and opposed to the laver mounting plate, and a signal processing for converting an image signal output from the photographing means into a signal for screen display Means and a display means for displaying a picture taken by the picture taking means on a screen in accordance with an output signal of the signal processing means. In order to reduce the size and weight, it is preferable to use a CCD camera as the photographing means and use a liquid crystal display as the display means.

In the case of such a configuration, when no foreign matter is mixed in the nori, the transmitted image of the nori by the infrared light taken by the photographing means has a uniform brightness with almost no difference in brightness over the entire surface. The image becomes an image, and when a foreign substance such as a stone or dust is mixed, the foreign substance appears as a black spot in the uniform luminance image.

Therefore, when foreign matter is contained, the worker may remove the foreign matter in the laver with tweezers or the like while looking at the screen displayed on the display means. This makes it possible to reliably remove not only foreign substances adhering to the surface of the laver, but also foreign substances mixed inside the laver. As a result, it becomes possible to regenerate non-contaminated products that could not be reproduced as non-defective products as non-defective products.

[0011]

[Embodiment of the invention]

 Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electric circuit incorporated in the laver inspection apparatus according to the embodiment. 2 to 4 show the external structure of an embodiment of the laver inspection apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a front view, FIG. 3 is a right side view, and FIG. 4 is a plan view. Further, FIG. 7A shows an example of a display image according to an embodiment, in which FIG. 7A is an image example in which no foreign matter is mixed, and FIG. 7B is an image example in which a foreign matter is mixed. .

As shown in the drawing, the laver inspection apparatus according to the present embodiment has a configuration in which an upper surface of a box-shaped case main body 1 serving as a base is slightly wider than a sheet-shaped laver. A rectangular opening 2 having a size of 2 mm is formed, and a laver mounting plate 3 also serving as a foreign matter removing work table made of transparent glass or ground glass that can transmit infrared light is attached to the opening. Have been. On the lower side of the laver mounting plate 3, an infrared light source 4 configured by arranging a large number of infrared LEDs in a plane lattice is arranged facing the laver mounting plate 3. 4 is configured to be able to irradiate infrared light toward the laver mounting plate 3.

On the other hand, a gate-shaped camera support beam 5 is fixedly provided on the upper side of the case main body 1 so as to straddle the upper space of the laver mounting portion 3 also serving as the foreign matter removing work table. A CCD camera 6 is arranged near the center of the top of the camera support beam 5 so as to face the laver mounting plate 3.

Further, a liquid crystal display 7 constituting a display means is attached to the back side of the case main body 1 by a hinge 8 so as to be openable and closable. The screen 9 is configured to be visible at the front position through the opening. Further, when the apparatus is carried or not used, as shown by a chain line in FIG. 3, the apparatus is configured to be folded and overlapped on the laver mounting plate 3.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an electric circuit incorporated in the laver inspection apparatus. In the case of this example, the infrared light source 4 is configured by arranging a large number of infrared LEDs in a plane lattice shape as described above, and is disposed below the laver mounting plate 3. The CCD camera 6 is arranged to face the laver mounting plate 3 which is transparent to infrared light, and is configured to be able to photograph the entire surface of the laver 10 placed on the laver mounting plate 3.

An image signal captured by the CCD camera 6 is input to a signal processing circuit 12, converted into a desired television signal by the signal processing circuit 12, sent to a liquid crystal display 7, and displayed on a screen thereof. Is done. Although not shown in FIGS. 2 to 4, the signal processing circuit 12 is built in the case body 1. Note that, as will be clear from the operation description below, the present invention captures a transmitted image of laver using infrared light and displays it on the screen. Therefore, the CCD camera 6 is not necessarily a color camera. A monochrome (black and white) camera is sufficient.

Incidentally, the dimensions of the laver inspection apparatus according to the above-described embodiment are as follows: the front width is about 40 cm, the vertical height is about 54 cm, the display depth is about 32 cm in the front-rear direction, and the display is standing up. It is about 40 cm in depth in the front-rear direction, and can be configured to be extremely small and lightweight. Therefore, it can be easily carried by one person.

Next, a foreign matter removing operation using the above apparatus will be described. First, the seaweed 10 to be inspected is placed on the seaweed mounting plate 3 of the device of the present invention. Next, the power of the apparatus is turned on, and the infrared light source 4 is driven to irradiate the laver mounting plate 3 with infrared light. In order to minimize the influence of external visible light on the CCD camera, it is desirable that the illumination around the apparatus be slightly darkened or the area around the apparatus be shielded from light.

As described above, the infrared light is a semi-transparent light having a transmittance of about 50% for the laver 10, but cannot transmit a foreign substance 13 such as a stone or dust. On the other hand, the CCD camera 6 has sensitivity not only to visible light but also to infrared light. Therefore, when the foreign matter 13 is not mixed, the infrared transmission image of the laver 10 captured by the CCD camera 6 shows that the entire surface of the laver 10 has almost no difference in brightness, as shown in FIG. It is projected as a uniform brightness image without any.

On the other hand, when foreign matter 13 such as stone or dust is mixed in the surface of or in the seaweed 10, infrared light cannot pass through the foreign matter 13 such as stone or dust. For example, as shown in FIG. 5B, the foreign matter 13 appears as a black dot in the uniform brightness image of the laver 10.

An image signal of the laver 10 on the laver mounting plate 3 captured by the CCD camera 6 is sent to a signal processing circuit 12 and converted into a desired television signal for screen display. The image is displayed on the screen 9 as an image as shown in FIG. 5 (a) or FIG. 5 (b).

While looking at the display screen, the worker removes the foreign matter 13 in the seaweed using tweezers or the like when the foreign matter is included. In this way, the use of the device of the present invention makes it possible to reliably remove not only foreign substances adhering to the surface of laver, but also foreign substances that have entered the interior of the laver. As a result, it is possible to regenerate non-contaminated products that are conventionally difficult to regenerate as good products.

In the above embodiment, a liquid crystal display is used as the display means. However, when there is no need to consider the size and weight of the apparatus, a brown tube is used instead. A CRT display can also be used.

Although a commercially available CCD camera that is easily available is used as the photographing means, the present invention is not limited to this. Any photographing means having sensitivity to infrared light can be used. . In addition, as the infrared light source, a number of infrared LEDs arranged in a plane lattice was used. However, the present invention is not limited to this. If infrared light can be evenly applied to the laver mounting plate, Other infrared light sources can be used.

Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, a dedicated signal processing circuit for displaying an image is built in the case, and a dedicated liquid crystal display is attached to the case so as to be openable and closable. Instead of a display, it is possible to use a microcomputer and a display that are configured separately.

[0026]

[Effect of the invention]

 As described above, according to the laver inspection apparatus of the present invention, foreign matters such as stones and dust adhering to the surface of the sheet-shaped dried laver or contaminating the inside are image-wise extracted and displayed on the screen. By removing the foreign matter while viewing this screen, even if foreign matter is mixed in the nori, it can be reliably removed and reproduced as a good product.

When a CCD camera is used as the photographing means and a liquid crystal display is used as the display means, the device can be configured to be small and lightweight, and can be easily carried by one person. The usability and mobility of the device can be greatly improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electric circuit incorporated in a laver inspection device according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the laver inspection apparatus according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a right side view of the laver inspection apparatus according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a plan view of the laver inspection apparatus according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a display image by the device of the present invention;
(A) is an example of an image when a foreign substance is not mixed, and (b) is an image example when a foreign substance is mixed.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Case main body 2 Opening part 3 Seaweed mounting plate 4 Infrared light source 5 Camera support beam 6 CCD camera 7 Liquid crystal display 8 Hinge 9 Screen 10 Sheet-shaped seaweed 12 Signal processing circuit 13 Foreign matter

Claims (2)

[Utility model registration claims] 1. A laver inspection apparatus for detecting foreign matter mixed in a sheet of dried laver, comprising: a laver mounting plate transparent to infrared light; An infrared light source that is positioned and arranged to irradiate infrared light toward the laver mounting plate, and that has a sensitivity to the infrared light and that photographs the laver placed on the laver mounting plate. A photographing means positioned above the laver mounting plate so as to face the laver mounting plate, a signal processing means for converting an image signal output from the photographing means into a signal for screen display, Display means for displaying an image captured by the image capturing means on a screen in accordance with an output signal of the signal processing means. 2. The photographing means comprises a CCD camera,
2. The laver inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said display means comprises a liquid crystal display.