JPH0741011A - Packing bag and discriminating device for the same - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To discriminate a discrimination mark attached on a packing bag having possibility of irregular deformation. CONSTITUTION:A discrimination mark formed by a plurality of bit marks arranged by a pitch of 2mm or more is formed on a packing bag 1, and the packing bag 1 is conveyed by a conveying device 11. The discrimination forming position of the packing bag 1 is picked up by a camera 13 on the way of the conveyance. A light and shade image signal is formed by an image incorporating device, and the bit marks are extracted and formed into binary numbers after processing the light and shade image signal by means of an image processing device, and the packing bag is discriminated by the binary signal.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a packaging bag having an identification mark and an identification device for reading the identification mark of the packaging bag, and particularly to a packaging bag suitable for packaging irregularly shaped products such as chicken and pork. Regarding the identification device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a bar code is often attached to a package of a product or a product for production management, product management, etc., and a barcode is printed even on a flexible packaging bag. And attaching with a label (see, for example, JP-A-61-244753 and JP-A-6-26605).
3-125158, Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 60-75249,
See Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 61-164132 and Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 5-34144). By the way, the bar code shows the information by the thickness and interval of the line, and to read this information accurately,
The flatness of the bar coded part is required. For this reason, when attaching a barcode to a flexible packaging bag, conventionally, the barcode is attached to a portion of the packaging bag that is not easily deformed, or a portion of the packaging bag that is not easily deformed is positively made and the barcode is placed at that position. It had a code attached.

[0003]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, chicken,
In the production process of pork, etc., a bar code for identifying the contents was put on a packaging bag containing chicken, pork, etc. in order to computerize the production control, and there was a problem that it could not be read. That is, in the production process of chicken, pork, etc., the worker produces the produced meat by each part,
Sorted by quality, put in a flexible packaging bag such as plastic film, vacuum packed, and immediately frozen immediately, but in this case, raw products such as chicken and pork have not fixed shape, and Since it is vacuum-packed, the packaging bag is deformed irregularly, and it is often impossible to read the barcode.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and provides a packaging bag having an identification mark which enables reading even when an irregularly shaped object such as chicken or pork is put in. The purpose is to provide.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an identification device capable of identifying the contents by reading the identification mark on the packaging bag.

[0006]

The first invention of the present application, which has been made to achieve the above object, is a packaging bag having an identification mark, wherein the identification mark comprises a plurality of bit marks arranged at a pitch of 2 mm or more. A gist of the present invention is a packaging bag having the bit mark of two types, white or black.

The second invention of the present application is based on a transporting device for transporting the packaging bag containing the contents, and an image including at least an area with an identification mark of the packaging bag transported by the transporting device. An image pickup device for converting into a signal, an image pickup device for forming a grayscale image signal corresponding to an image including at least an area with an identification mark of the packaging bag from the signal from the image pickup device, and an image pickup device from the image pickup device An identification device having an image processing device that processes an image signal, extracts the bit mark and binarizes it, and an identification circuit that digitizes a signal from the image processing device and identifies a packaging bag from the numerical value And

[0008]

In the packaging bag according to the present invention, since the identification mark is composed of a plurality of bit marks, the white bit mark,
Black bit mark with binary digit "0", "1"
(Or “1”, “0”), and this combination can show more information. Moreover, since the bit marks are arranged at a pitch of 2 mm or more,
Even if the portion with the identification mark is deformed somewhat irregularly, each bit mark can be read and can be identified. Here, the pitch of the bit marks is preferably as large as possible when the deformation of the packaging bag is large, as in the case of vacuum-packing irregularly shaped objects such as poultry, for example, 5 mm or more. preferable.

In the above-mentioned identification device according to the present invention, the packaging bag containing the contents is transported by the transport device, and the image pickup device provided at a fixed position displays an image of at least an area marked with the identification mark of the passing packaging bag. Is converted into an electric signal, the image capturing device forms a grayscale image signal corresponding to the image of at least the identification mark area of the packaging bag, and the image processing device processes the grayscale image signal to convert each bit mark. The identification mark of the packaging bag is identified by extracting and binarizing the bit mark signal according to white and black, and the identification circuit digitizing the binarization signal and collating it with a predetermined product number. can do.

[0010]

The preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below. FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view showing a packaging bag according to an embodiment of the present invention, and 1 shows the entire packaging bag. In this packaging bag 1,
An identification mark 2 for identifying the packaging bag 1 is printed so that a product such as chicken meat contained in the bag can be identified. In addition, if necessary, a term that specifically indicates the product to be put inside (eg, "Thigh meat, size M, 2 kg", etc.)
Is also printed.

The identification mark 2 used here is not a conventionally used bar code, but is much larger than that. A start mark 3 indicating the start point of the identification mark, followed by a fixed pitch. It is composed of a recognition mark 4 composed of a plurality of bit marks 5 arranged in. Here, the plurality of bit marks 5 constituting the recognition mark 4 are composed of two types of white marks and black marks, and each of them is a binary numeral “0”, “1” (or “1”, “0”). )). The number of bit marks 5 to be used may be appropriately determined according to the type of product to be divided, and for example, for 500 types of division, 9 bit marks 5 may be used as shown in the embodiment. .
The pitch of each bit mark 5 is preferably large so that it can be recognized even when the packaging bag 1 wraps irregularly shaped objects such as chicken meat and deforms irregularly, and is set to 2 mm or more. Here, the pitch of the bit marks 5 is set to 2 mm or more, even if the packaging bag 1 is irregularly deformed by vacuum-packing the chicken meat, if the pitch is 2 mm, in most cases, discrimination by image processing described later is performed. Because it was possible. To enable more reliable identification, the bit mark 5
The pitch is preferably as large as possible, for example, 5 mm
The above is preferable. Although the shape of each bit mark 5 is circular in the illustrated embodiment, the shape is not limited to this.
Square, rectangular, etc. are arbitrary. White solid printing is applied to the portion where the identification mark 2 is printed in order to avoid the influence of the contents at the time of recognition. It should be noted that the white bit mark 5 does not necessarily need to be drawn with a line showing the periphery of the mark, and may be simply a plain white color.

The start mark 3 may be any mark as long as it can recognize the starting point of the identification mark 2 during image processing described later, and normally a black mark larger than a black bit mark is used. One identification mark 2 may be provided on the packaging bag 1, but in order to increase the recognition rate, in the present embodiment,
Two bags are provided, one in the longitudinal direction and one in the lateral direction. The identification mark 4 attached to the packaging bag 1 is determined so as to correspond to the product number for indicating the type, quality, etc. of the chicken meat or the like to be placed in the packaging bag 1.

Next, an identification device for identifying the packaging bag 1 will be described. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 11 denotes a transporting device for transporting a packaging bag 1 containing contents such as poultry meat, and a packaging bag 1 containing bird meat or the like on the transporting device 11 upstream thereof.
Are supplied with the identification mark 2 facing upward.
Here, each packaging bag 1 contains the contents corresponding to the identification mark 2 attached thereto. Further, a sorting device (not shown) for sorting the packaging bags 1 based on the information obtained by reading the identification mark 2 of the packaging bag 1 is provided downstream of the transport device 11.

Reference numeral 13 denotes a packaging bag 1 which is conveyed by the conveying device 11.
Is an image pickup apparatus for converting an image into an electric signal, and a CCD camera with a shutter is used in this embodiment. The CCD camera 13 with a shutter can instantaneously capture an image of a portion of the packaging bag 1 including the region with the identification mark 2 by opening the shutter at the moment when the packaging bag 1 passes thereunder. An image capturing device 14 captures a signal from the CCD camera 13 and forms a grayscale image signal of 256 gradations corresponding to an image of a region including the identification mark 2 of the packaging bag 1. The image pickup device 13 is not necessarily limited to a CCD camera, and a linear image sensor can be used. The linear image sensor linearly and continuously images the image of the packaging bag 1 passing thereunder. It may be configured to convert into an electric signal. Also in this case, the image capturing device 14 can accumulate the output signal from the linear image sensor and form a grayscale image signal corresponding to the image of the region including the identification mark 2 of the packaging bag 1.

Reference numeral 16 is an image processing device for inputting a grayscale image signal from the image recognition device 14 and processing it. As shown in FIG. 3, the image processing device 16 detects a start mark signal 3'in the image signal and then opens a window 18 for extracting the bit mark signal 5'with reference to the start mark signal 3 '. Set each window 18
The signal inside is taken out, and this signal is binarized by comparing it with a predetermined threshold value. Note that, in FIG. 3, the numerical value described below each bit mark signal 5'is its binary signal. Here, although the bit marks 5 formed on the packaging bag 1 are formed at a constant pitch, the bit marks 5 are irregularly deformed in a state where the contents are put therein, and therefore, the bit mark signals 5 in the read image signal. The pitch of'is not always constant. However, each window 18 is made to correspond to the bit mark signal 5'by setting the size of the window 18 used for image processing smaller than the bit mark signal 5 ', and by performing the center of gravity correction of the window 18. be able to. Further, even if the window 18 is slightly deviated from the bit mark signal 5 ', it is sufficient to determine whether the bit mark signal 5'in the window 18 is white or black. Note that this image processing may be performed by using a conventional technique, and thus detailed description thereof will be omitted.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 20 denotes an identification circuit, which digitizes a binary signal from the image processing device 16 and identifies it by matching it with the product number of existing built-in data.
It outputs an identification signal. Here, the identification circuit 20
The relationship between the product number and the contents (for example, product number 123 = meat, size M, product number 124 = meat, size S, etc.) is input in advance as existing data.
Regarding the digitization of binary signals, if it can be associated with the product number, it may be in binary or other N-ary system, but it is convenient to identify it by converting it to decimal system. Is.
The identification signal from the identification circuit 20 is sent to a sorting device (not shown) provided downstream of the transport device 11,
Used to identify packaging bags. The identification signal from the identification circuit 20 is also sent to the process control device 22 and used for process control such as shipment amount control. Reference numeral 23 is a display.

Next, the operation of the identification device having the above configuration will be described. While the packaging bag 1 containing chicken meat and the like is conveyed by the conveying device 11 with the identification mark 2 facing upward, the CCD camera 13 photographs the upper surface of the packaging bag 1,
The image capturing device 14 inputs the signal and forms a grayscale image signal. Next, the image processing device 16 processes the grayscale image signal to extract the bit mark 5 of the identification mark 2 and binarize it according to white and black. At this time, the packaging bag 1 has the identification marks 2 formed at two locations,
Usually, one identification mark 2 (for example, one provided in the longitudinal direction of the packaging bag 1) is extracted. However, in some cases, extraction may not be possible. In that case, the other identification mark 2 is extracted and binarized. As a result, reliable extraction is possible. Next, the identification circuit 20 digitizes the binary signal and associates it with the product number to identify it. The identification signal for identifying the packaging bag 1 is sent to the sorting device downstream of the transport device 11, and the packaging bag 1 is sorted for each of the same type according to the identification signal. Further, the identification signal is sent to the process control device 22 and used for process control such as production amount control and shipment amount control.

[0017]

As described above, the packaging bag of the present invention is provided with the identification mark which is a combination of two kinds of bit marks of the white bit mark and the black bit mark. The bit mark of can be used as a binary number "0", "1" (or "1", "0") to show a lot of information, and the bit mark is arranged at a pitch of 2 mm or more. As a result, even if the part with this identification mark is deformed irregularly, it is easy to read each bit mark, and it is possible to identify even when used for vacuum packing of atypical products such as poultry and pork. have.

In the identification apparatus of the present invention, the identification mark-applied portion of the packaging bag is imaged to form a grayscale image signal, and the grayscale image signal is subjected to image processing to extract each bit mark and binarize it. With this configuration, even if the identification mark-provided portion of the packaging bag is deformed irregularly, each bit mark can be identified and binarized. It has the effect of identifying packaging bags and using them for process control and sorting.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an identification device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of a packaging bag according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic plan view illustrating a state in which a captured image signal is processed in the identification device of the above embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Packaging bag 2 Identification mark 3 Start mark 4 Recognition mark 5 Bit mark 11 Conveying device 13 Imaging device (CCD camera) 18 Window

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A packaging bag having an identification mark, wherein the identification mark has a plurality of bit marks arranged at a pitch of 2 mm or more, and the bit marks are of two types, white or black. Characteristic packaging bag. 2. A transport device for transporting the packaging bag according to claim 1 containing contents, and a packaging bag transported by the transport device.
From an image pickup device that converts an image including at least an area with an identification mark into an electric signal, and a signal from the image pickup device,
An image capturing device which forms a grayscale image signal corresponding to an image including at least an identification mark region of the packaging bag, and an image signal from the image capturing device is processed to extract the bit mark and binarize it. And an identification circuit that digitizes a signal from the image processing apparatus and identifies a packaging bag from the numerical value.