JPH06281584A - Contamination measuring apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To measure the contamination degree of a glossy surface, especially the surface of a vehicle body, accurately, simply, qcuikly and economically. CONSTITUTION:A contamination measuring apparatus 10 comprises a light emitting part 1, first and second light receiving parts 2 and 3, extracting and converting parts 4 and 5 corresponding to the light receiving tarts 2 and 3, respectively, and a detecting part 8, which detects the contamination degree in the form of the index number. The first and second light receiving parts 2 and 3 receive the reflected light beams from a vehicle body 9 in the specified two directions. The extracting and converting parts 4 and 5 extract only the reflected light from the light emitting part 1 among the outputs in correspondence with the respective first and second light receiving parts 2 and 3. Then, the light is converted into the DC voltage corresponding to the intensity of the reflected light. The detecting tart, 8 comprises an operating part 6, which performs the ratio operation of the intensity of each reflected light so as to obtain the contamination degree, and a specifying part 7, which specifies the contamination index based on the ratio.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention measures the degree of dirt on a glossy surface, especially on the surface of a vehicle body, and based on this, the washing conditions such as the pressing force of the car wash brush on the vehicle body, the amount of water applied, the amount of detergent applied, etc. A possible dirt measuring device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The first conventional dirt measuring method is
There is a method of measuring the weight per unit area of the dirt adhered to the glossy surface, particularly the surface of the vehicle body, and a second method of measuring the apparent color density of the glossy surface. Further, in the conventional car wash machine, the degree of dirt on the vehicle body is visually observed by a service person, and the pressing force, water amount, and detergent amount of various brushes on the vehicle body surface are adjusted based on the judgment, or
Car wash has been performed under specified conditions regardless of the degree of dirt on the car body.

[0003]

The first conventional method is as follows.
Although it is a simple method, there are problems in that preparation for measurement is troublesome, it takes time, and there is a risk of damaging the surface of the vehicle body when removing dirt. The second
The method (1) does not have a risk of damaging the surface of the vehicle body, but has a problem in that it is inferior in accuracy, requires equipment cost, and has many empirical factors for measurement. What can be said in common with both the first and second methods is the accuracy and simplicity of measurement,
It is not practical in that sense because it is not harmonious in terms of speed and economy, and it is difficult to immediately reflect it in the conditions of the cleaning treatment according to the result while measuring.

Regarding the application to a car wash machine, since the method of measuring the degree of dirt on the car body is not always appropriate, there is too much or too much of an excessive amount of car wash, i.e., brush pressing force, water amount, and detergent amount. There was a concern that the finished product may not always give the customer sufficient satisfaction. In addition, the service person becomes busy in terms of visual inspection and condition setting judgment, and the time and mental allowance for true service is reduced. In other words, it will lead to a reduction in car washing efficiency and service.

The object of the present invention is to solve the above problems of the prior art and to measure the degree of dirt on a glossy surface, especially the surface of a vehicle body relatively accurately, easily, quickly and economically. Based on the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a stain measuring device capable of appropriately setting the cleaning force such as the pressing force of the car wash brush on the vehicle body, the amount of applied water, and the amount of applied detergent.

[0006]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a dirt measuring device which receives, from a light emitting section, reflected light in two predetermined directions which is incident on a dirty glossy surface. And the ratio of the outputs of the first and second light receiving portions,
And a detection unit that determines the dirt index according to this ratio.

A dirt measuring device according to a second aspect of the present invention includes first and second light receiving portions for receiving reflected light in two predetermined directions of light incident on the soiled vehicle body surface from a light emitting portion; A detector, which determines the ratio of the outputs of the first and second light-receiving units and determines a dirt index according to the ratio, is installed in the gate of the automatic car wash machine together with the light-emitting unit, and at each position of this gate. The application condition of the car wash means can be set based on the measured dirt index on the vehicle body surface.

A dirt measuring device according to a third aspect is the first aspect.
Alternatively, in the apparatus described in 2, the optical axis of the first light receiving unit is
It is set close to the direction of incident light. A dirt measuring device according to a fourth aspect is the device according to any one of the first to third aspects, wherein the incident light from the light emitting portion is a straight light having a light flux cross section of a straight line.

A dirt measuring device according to a fifth aspect of the present invention is the fourth aspect.
In the device described in (1), the direction of the linear light is vertical. A dirt measuring device according to a sixth aspect is the device according to any one of the first to fifth aspects, wherein the incident light from the light emitting portion is light that is repeatedly turned on and off at a high frequency, and The second light receiving unit is provided in a subsequent stage, and includes an extraction unit having a capacitor for removing a DC component for extracting only an AC component of each output.

[0010]

In the dirt measuring device according to the first, third, fourth, fifth or sixth aspect of the present invention, the reflected light in two predetermined directions of the light incident on the dirty glossy surface from the light emitting part is the first, second The light is received by each light receiving section of the
After the ratio of the outputs of the respective light receiving units is obtained, the dirt index is determined according to this ratio.

In the dirt measuring device according to any one of claims 2 to 6, the light emitting part, the first and second light receiving parts, and the detecting part are provided in the automatic car wash machine gate, and the light emitting part is provided. The reflected lights of the light incident on the soiled vehicle body surface in the predetermined two directions are received by the first and second light receiving units, and the detection unit causes the first and second light receiving units to be received. After the ratio of the output of is determined, the dirt index is determined according to this ratio.

Particularly, in the dirt measuring device according to claim 3,
Since the optical axis of the first light receiving unit is set close to the direction of the incident light from the light emitting unit, the output of the first light receiving unit becomes larger than the output for the reflected light in any other direction. Particularly, in the dirt measuring device according to the fourth or fifth aspect, since the incident light from the light emitting portion is linear light, an average dirt index in the line segment range can be obtained.

Particularly, in the dirt measuring device according to claim 6,
Each of the first and second light receiving portions receives the superimposed light of the incident light that is repeatedly turned on and off at a high frequency and the sunlight having a constant intensity, and outputs the light correspondingly. The extraction unit removes only the DC component of the sunlight and the DC component of the incident light from the output, and extracts only the AC component of the incident light from the light emitting unit.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the stain measuring device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. This embodiment is installed in a car wash machine to measure the degree of dirt on the side surface of the vehicle body, and based on this, it is possible to set the pressing force of the car wash brush, the amount of water and the amount of detergent. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a car washing machine equipped with the embodiment. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 20 is a gate of the car wash machine, and the dirt measuring apparatus 10 of the embodiment is installed at the lower part of the right pedestal. Here, according to this one embodiment, the degree of dirt on the left side surface of the vehicle body 9 is measured, and this takes a form representative of the case of dirt on the left side surface. Of course, two of the embodiments are used for the gate 20.
It is also possible to take the form of installing at the bottom of the left and right pedestals. Also, at the gate 20, various brushes for cleaning and drying the car body,
Although a drying nozzle is installed, only the side brush 21 for cleaning the right side surface of the vehicle body 9 is shown in the figure as a representative. The vehicle body 9 is stationary, the gate 20 moves in the X direction, and the degree of contamination at each point on the left side surface of the vehicle body 9 is measured by the embodiment in the process of movement, and the side brush 21 in the Y axis direction is measured according to the measurement result. And the pressing force against the side surface of the vehicle body 9, the amount of water, and the amount of detergent are set. In this way, by automatically setting the washing conditions according to the actual state of the dirt on the vehicle body 9, the car washing efficiency is improved and the labor saving is expanded.
Eventually, the service can be improved.

Before explaining the structure of the embodiment, the principle of dirt measurement will be described with reference to FIG. Fig. 4 shows the relationship between the degree of stain on the glossy surface and diffuse reflection. (A) is a schematic diagram when there is no stain, (b) is a schematic diagram when the stain is medium,
(c) is a schematic diagram when the dirt is severe. In FIG. 4 (a), the vertically downward incident light is almost specularly reflected because the glossy surface is not contaminated, and the reflected light proceeds vertically upward. In Fig. 4 (b), the same vertically downward incident light is diffusely reflected because the glossy surface is stained in the middle, but the reflected light is strong in the direction where the reflection angle is small and increases as the reflection angle increases. Decreases rapidly. For example, if the intensity of the reflected light at the reflection angle α is E1 and the intensity of the reflected light at the reflection angle β is E2, then E2 is much smaller than E1. On the other hand, in Fig. 4 (c), the same vertically downward incident light is diffusely reflected because the glossy surface is heavily soiled, but the reflected light is divided into a small reflection angle direction and a large reflection angle direction. It decreases only slightly compared to 4 (b). In other words, if we take the ratio (= E2 / E1) of the reflected light intensities E1, E2 at each reflection angle α, β, this ratio is less than 1, and when there is no stain, it is almost zero, It gets worse as it gets worse.

The configuration of the embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 2, a dirt measuring device 10 which is an embodiment is shown.
Mainly includes the light emitting section 1 and the first and second light receiving sections 2 and 3
And a corresponding extraction / conversion unit 4 and 5, and a detection unit 8 that finally detects the degree of contamination in the form of a contamination index. Each of the first and second light receiving portions 2 and 3 is provided with a predetermined light from the vehicle body 9.
Receives light reflected in the direction. The extraction / conversion units 4 and 5 correspond to the first and second light receiving units 2 and 3, respectively, and after extracting only the reflected light component from the light emitting unit 1 from the output, the intensity of the reflected light is determined. Convert to the corresponding DC voltage. The detection unit 8 includes a calculation unit 6 that calculates the ratio of the intensity of each reflected light in order to obtain the degree of contamination, and a defining unit 7 that defines the contamination index from the obtained ratio. The extraction / conversion unit 4,5 extracts only the light reflected by the light emitting unit 1 because the light received by each light receiving unit 2 and 3 is actually the vehicle body by the light emitting unit 1.
This is because the reflected light at 9 and the reflected light of sunlight are superposed. This point will be described later in detail.

The light emitting section 1 makes light from a point light source (not shown) enter the side surface of the vehicle body 9 through a cylindrical lens so that the light beam cross section becomes a straight line in the vertical direction.
Moreover, the light emitted from the light emitting unit 1 is light that is repeatedly turned on and off at a high frequency. The reason for using such on / off light is to eliminate the influence of sunlight, and will be described later in detail. Now, the portion indicated by the curved line on the side surface of the vehicle body 9 is the incident point of the vertical straight light. By doing so, the average dirt index in the vertical line segment range perpendicular to the traveling direction of the side surface of the vehicle body 9 is measured, and the effectiveness of the measurement or the measurement efficiency can be improved as compared with the case where the incident point is a point. Next, the respective reflected lights in the predetermined two directions from the incident portion are received by the respective light receiving parts 2 and 3. The direction of the reflected light is set empirically based on what is shown in Fig. 4, which is a principle diagram for measuring dirt. Usually, α = 5 to 10 degrees (take as small as possible) and β = 50 to 60 degrees. The reason why α is set as small as possible is that the intensity of the reflected light is close to the maximum value, so that the difference from the intensity of the reflected light at β can be made large, and the measurement accuracy can be improved accordingly. Although not shown here, each of the light receiving units 2 and 3 has a built-in cylindrical lens for collecting linear light.

Since the light received by each of the light receiving units 2 and 3 is a combination of the light reflected by the vehicle body 9 by the light emitting unit 1 and the reflected light of the sunlight, the extraction / conversion units 4,5 Extracts only the light reflected by the light emitting section 1 and converts it into DC voltages B1 and B2 corresponding to the intensity of the reflected light. The principle of extraction is as follows. Since the high-frequency on / off light from the light emitting unit 1 is equivalently a light in which the direct current component and the alternating current component are superposed, among the reflected light, the direct current component by the light emitting unit 1 and the total sunlight The direct current component is cut by the capacitor, and the light emitting unit 1
Only the AC component due to remains, that is, is extracted. Light emitting part
If the intensity of sunlight is negligible compared to the light intensity of 1, for example, when the measurement is performed in the shade and the light of light emitting unit 1 is very strong, The extraction function of 4,5 becomes unnecessary.

The calculation unit 6 obtains the ratio of the outputs B1 and B2 of the extraction / conversion units 4 and 5, and the next defining unit 7 defines the dirt index D according to the ratio. Figure 5
[Fig. 4] is a characteristic diagram with respect to a light-receiving unit output ratio of a stain index in the example. In the figure, the horizontal axis represents each extraction / conversion unit 4,5
When the ratio R = B2 / B1 of the outputs B1 and B2 of the above is taken and the dirt index D is taken on the vertical axis, the characteristic is expressed by a function of D = F (R) as a curve that curves upward to the right and convex downward. Be done. That is, as the degree of dirt becomes worse, the ratio of reflected light increases,
The increasing rate of change decreases with increasing soiling. Returning to FIG. 1, the output of the regulation unit 7 is the control unit related to the operation of the entire car wash machine.
It is input to 11, and in terms of dirt removal, this controls the pressing force of various brushes, the amount of water and the amount of detergent.

The operation of the embodiment will be described mainly with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 3 and supplementary reference to FIGS. At step S1, the counter i for the advancing position of the gate, that is, the dirt measuring position of the vehicle body is initialized.
In step S2, the extraction / conversion units 4 and 5 (Fig.
Outputs B1i and B2i (see 1) are input. Step S3
Then, Ri = B2i / B1i is calculated, and in step S4, Di = F (Ri) is calculated (see FIG. 5). The above processing is repeated until the measurement of the entire length of the vehicle body is completed through steps S5 and S6. n is a counter corresponding to the final measurement position of the vehicle body.

[0021]

In the dirt measuring device according to the first, third, fourth, fifth or sixth aspect of the present invention, the reflected light in two predetermined directions of the light incident on the dirty glossy surface from the light emitting portion is the first, After the light is received by each of the second light receiving units and the ratio of the outputs of the first and second light receiving units is obtained by the detection unit, the dirt index is determined according to this ratio. Therefore, the degree of dirt on the glossy surface can be measured relatively accurately, easily, quickly and economically.

In the dirt measuring device according to any one of claims 2 to 6, the automatic car wash gate is provided with a light emitting portion, first and second light receiving portions, and a detecting portion, and the light emitting portion is provided. The reflected lights of the light incident on the soiled vehicle body surface in the predetermined two directions are received by the first and second light receiving units, and the detection unit causes the first and second light receiving units to be received. After the ratio of the output of is determined, the dirt index is determined according to this ratio. Therefore, the degree of dirt on the vehicle body surface can be measured relatively accurately, easily, quickly, and economically, and on the basis of it, the cleaning conditions such as the pressing force of the car wash brush on the vehicle body, the amount of applied water, the amount of applied detergent, etc. can be determined. It becomes possible to set properly, so that car washing efficiency can be improved, labor saving can be expanded, and service can be improved.

Particularly, in the dirt measuring device according to claim 3,
Since the optical axis of the first light receiving portion is installed close to the direction of the incident light from the light emitting portion, the output of the first light receiving portion becomes larger than the output in any other direction. Therefore, the accuracy of measuring the dirt index or the dirt degree is improved. Particularly, in the dirt measuring device according to the fourth or fifth aspect, since the incident light from the light emitting portion is linear light, an average dirt index in the line segment range can be obtained. Therefore, the effectiveness or efficiency of dirt measurement can be improved.

Particularly, in the dirt measuring device according to claim 6,
Each of the first and second light receiving portions receives the superimposed light of the incident light that is repeatedly turned on and off at a high frequency and the sunlight having a constant intensity, and outputs the light correspondingly. The extraction unit removes only the DC component of the sunlight and the DC component of the incident light from the output, and extracts only the AC component of the incident light from the light emitting unit. Therefore, the mud stain measurement can be accurately performed outdoors under the sunlight in a form of removing the influence of the sunlight, which increases the practicality.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment according to the invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a car washing machine equipped with the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 shows the relationship between the degree of dirt on a glossy surface and diffuse reflection.
(a) is a schematic diagram when there is no stain, (b) is a schematic diagram when the stain is medium, and (c) is a schematic diagram when the stain is severe.

FIG. 5 is a characteristic diagram of a dirt index with respect to an output ratio of a light receiving unit in an example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Light emitting part 2,3 Light receiving part 4,5 Extraction / conversion part 6 Calculation part 7 Regulation part 8 Detection part 9 Car body 10 Contamination measuring device 11 Control part

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A first light receiving portion and a second light receiving portion for receiving reflected light in two predetermined directions of light incident on a dirty glossy surface from a light emitting portion; and each of the first and second light receiving portions. A stain measuring device, comprising: a detector that determines a ratio of outputs from the light receiving unit and determines a stain index according to the ratio. 2. A first and second light receiving portion for receiving reflected light in two predetermined directions of light incident on a soiled vehicle body surface from the light emitting portion; and each of the first and second light receiving portions. A detection unit that determines the output ratio of the light receiving unit and determines the dirt index according to this ratio;
Is installed in a gate of an automatic car wash machine together with a light emitting unit, and the application condition of the car wash means can be set based on the dirt index related to the vehicle body surface measured at each position of this gate. apparatus. 3. The apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein
The dirt measuring device, wherein an optical axis of the first light receiving portion is set close to a direction of incident light. 4. The dirt measuring device according to claim 1, wherein the incident light from the light emitting portion is a straight light having a straight light beam cross section. 5. The dirt measuring device according to claim 4, wherein the direction of the linear light is vertical. 6. The device according to claim 1, wherein the incident light from the light emitting portion is light that is repeatedly turned on and off at a high frequency, and the first and second light receiving portions are received. A dirt measuring device, characterized in that it is provided in a subsequent stage of the unit, and is provided with an extraction unit having a capacitor for removing a DC component for extracting only an AC component of each output.