JPH10288582A - Grain judgment device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To switch grain measurement and optical correction without requiring a mechanical drive by providing a light transmittance variable filter changeable to transparency and milk white. SOLUTION: In grain measurement, a control circuit 41 applies a voltage of 3 V or more to a light transmittance variable filter 40 according to the instruction from a microcomputer to lay the transmittance variable filter 40 in transparent state. A light is emitted to a grain G from light emitting parts 27, 28. The light emitted to the grain G is reflected by the grain surface or scattered and transmitted within the grain. The light reflected by the grain surface is detected by an upper detector 29, and the light irregularly reflected within the grain and advanced downward is transmitted by a transparent plate 58 and the transmittance variable filter 40 laid in transparent state, and detected by a lower detector 29. Both the detection signals are calibrated with a calibration value stored in a RAM, and the quality of the grain is judged on the basis of the measurement value after calibration.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a shell grain discriminating apparatus for irradiating shell grains with light and determining the quality of the shell grains based on the reflected light or scattered transmitted light.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A rice grain discriminating apparatus for discriminating defects such as cracks and cracks of rice grains by irradiating the grains with light and measuring the transmitted light or reflected light is disclosed in, for example, JP-A-8-7.
It is known from US Pat.

In such an apparatus for measuring shell particles using optical means, even if the same shell particles are measured due to contamination of optical system components, drift of an electronic circuit, or fluctuations in the amount of light from a light source, the measurement is always performed. The same measurement results are not always obtained. Conventionally, in order to correct the fluctuation factors of these various measurement results, a milky white glass or the like with little change in optical characteristics over time is used as a standard plate, and when the standard plate itself is measured by an optical system. An adjustment is made by an electric circuit or software means so that the detection signal always has the same value, so that the measurement error is corrected to be as small as possible.

FIG. 1 shows such a conventional correction device. In the figure, there is provided a rotating plate 1 which is a light-impermeable member provided with a number of depressions 2 for accommodating shell particles G above a transparent member 58, and the rotating plate 1 is rotated to form holes 2 in order. The shell particles G arriving at the target measurement point and placed in the holes 2 are measured. When measuring the shell particle G, which is a sample,
Move the standard plate holder 59 to the position A shown by the solid line,
The measurement opening 60 of the standard plate holder 59 is positioned directly below the shell grain G. Thereby, the light irradiation units 27 and 28
Is irradiated to the shell particles G, and the reflected light or transmitted light thereof is received by the detectors 29, 29, and optical measurement is performed. On the other hand, when measuring the standard plate 61 itself for correction of the optical measurement system, the standard plate holder 59 is attached to the air cylinder 62.
Move to the position B indicated by the broken line by the driving means such as. As a result, the standard plate 61 comes to the measurement position.
The light reflected from the standard plate 11 or transmitted light from the standard plate 11 can be measured by the detectors 29, 29.

In the conventional example shown in FIG. 1, the standard plate holder 59 is of a slide type, but may be of a rotary type. There is also a method in which the standard plate is set at the measurement position by human power only when performing measurement using the standard plate. In the conventional example shown in FIG. 1, since there is a driving portion such as sliding the standard plate holder 59, the configuration of the device becomes complicated, the manufacturing cost becomes high, and the possibility of failure increases. In addition, poor positioning accuracy of the driving portion causes a large measurement error.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to make it possible to switch between measurement of a shell particle and correction of an optical system without the need for a mechanical drive portion or human power. It is to provide a device.

[0007]

According to the present invention, a variable light transmittance filter capable of changing between a transparent state and a milky white state is provided near an optical measurement position of a shell particle. When the shell particles are measured, the filter is made transparent, and when the standard light amount is measured, the filter is made milky to perform optical measurement.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the overall configuration of the present invention. In FIG. 2, a number of elliptical holes 2 are provided in the vicinity of the rotary plate 1 on the circumference around the rotation axis of the rotary plate. Shell grains are accommodated in the holes 2 one by one. A transparent member is used below the rotating plate 1. The rotating plate 1 is driven to rotate by a motor 3.

The optical system block 24 sandwiching a part of the rotary plate 1 has light irradiating portions 27 and 28 for irradiating the shell particles G with light from the light source 5 through the optical fibers 25 and 26, and scatters in the shell particles G. Alternatively, the light reflected on the shell particle surface is detected by the detector 29,
It is detected at 29 and sent to the microcomputer 13 via the amplifier 30. Further, the positions of the light irradiation units 27 and 28 can be moved as needed.

An optical system holding block 4 is provided so as to sandwich a part of the rotary plate 1, and a light source 5 irradiates light from a light source 5 to shell particles in the hole 2 from above and below and obliquely from the rotary plate through an optical fiber 6. The light is guided to the light irradiators 7 and 8 to be irradiated. Light emitted from the light irradiators 7 and 8 is irregularly reflected in the shell grains or reflected on the surface of the shell grains, and is imaged on the line image sensor 10 through the imaging optical system 9. The detection signal from the sensor 10 is amplified by the amplifier 12 and sent to the microcomputer 13 for signal processing.

The result of the signal processing by the microcomputer 13 is displayed on the display unit 14. If necessary, a printer 15 may be provided to print data. Further, the microcomputer 13 can be connected to an external computer 16 or the like.

The keyboard 17 is for inputting necessary data, commands and the like. The good shell grains and the bad shell grains determined by the optical method in the optical system holding block unit 4 are separated by the sorter 1.
At 9 they are sent to separate containers. This sorter is configured to blow out shell particles in different directions according to the above-mentioned optical discrimination result by compressed air sent from the compressor 20.

When the rotary plate 1 is rotated and the shell grains come to a predetermined measurement position, a light reflector is provided corresponding to each of the holes 2, and this is detected by a position detection sensor 22. A signal is sent to the microcomputer 13. The timing of taking in the detection signal from the line image sensor 10 is determined by the detection signal.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged view of a portion of an optical system block 24 which is a main part of the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 2. Compared with the prior art shown in FIG. The difference is that a light transmittance variable filter 40 and a control circuit 41 for controlling the same are provided in place of the holder 59 and the air cylinder 62 for driving the holder 59.

The light transmittance variable filter 40 has a characteristic curve between the applied AC voltage and the transmittance as shown in FIG. That is, the light transmittance variable filter 40 includes:
When no voltage is applied, the transmittance becomes about 5%, which is a milky white state. However, when a voltage of 3 volts or more is applied, the liquid crystal becomes almost transparent.

Actually, the light transmittance of some types of shell particles is extremely small. If it is considered that the light transmittance is still too large when the light transmittance is 5%, the light transmittance variable filter 40 is used. An appropriate amount of transmitted light can be obtained by forming a multilayer structure in which a plurality of sheets are superimposed.

The operation of the entire shell / grain discriminating apparatus shown in FIG. Hereinafter, the operation of the portion related to the present invention will be described based on the operation flowchart of the microcomputer.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of the microcomputer executed before the product is shipped in a state where the shell grains are not put on the rotating plate 1. In the figure, first, at step 71, the control device 41 does not apply a voltage to the light transmittance variable filter 40 based on a command from the microcomputer 13 and makes the light transmittance variable filter 40 a milky white state. Next, in step 72, the light from the light source 5 is emitted from the light irradiators 27 and 28 to irradiate the hole 2. At that time, the light reflected and scattered and transmitted by the light transmittance variable filter 40 is detected by the detectors 29 and 29, and the respective detection signals V _F11 and V _F12 are detected in Step 73.
Is stored in the ROM in the microcomputer 13. Then, in step 74, the correction coefficients K ₁ and K ₂ , which are the ratios of the detection signals, are stored as 1 in the ROM, and the flow ends.

FIG. 6 is an operation flow chart executed when standard adjustment of the optical system is performed in a state where shell particles are not put on the rotating plate 1. In FIG. 7, in step 76, the voltage applied to the transmittance variable filter 40 is set to zero, and the filter is set to a milky white state which is a standard state.
The filter 4 for the light emitted from the light irradiation units 27 and 28
The reflected light and the scattered transmitted light at 0 are detected by the detectors 29 and 29, and the detection signals V _F21 and V _F22 are read. In step 78, V _F11 and V _F12 are read from the ROM, and correction coefficients K ₁ and K ₂ , which are the ratios of these read signals and the signal read in step 77, are calculated. Remember.

When the shell particles, which are the sample introduced into the hole of the rotating plate 1, are measured, the processing is performed according to the operation flow shown in FIG. In step 80, the control circuit 41 applies a voltage of 3 volts or more to the light transmittance variable filter 40 in accordance with an instruction from the microcomputer 13, and makes the light transmittance variable filter 40 transparent. Then step 81
Then, the light is irradiated from the light irradiation units 27 and 28 to the shell particles G.
The light applied to the shell particles G is reflected by the surface of the shell particles or scattered and transmitted within the shell particles and received by the detectors 29 and 29. The light reflected on the surface of the shell is detected by a detector signal V at the upper detector 29.
_Although detected as _S1 , the light that has been diffusely reflected in the shell grains and has traveled downward passes through the transparent plate 58 and the light transmittance variable filter 40 in the transparent state, and the detection signal V is detected by the lower detector 29.
Detected as _S2 . Next, in step 82, the respective detection signals V _S1 and V _S2 and the calibration values K ₁ and K ₂ calculated in step 78 and stored in the RAM are read out, and the detection signals V _S1 and V _S2 detected in step 81 are read out. Calculate the product with In step 83, based on the calibrated measured values V _se1 and V _se2 obtained in step 82, the quality of the shell grain is determined by a conventionally known method.

[0021]

According to the present invention as described above,
The amount of light can be standardized without performing the operation of moving the transmittance variable filter unit at the time of optical measurement of shell particles, so that the configuration of the apparatus can be simplified. This simplifies handling of the device, reduces the likelihood of device failure, and improves the change in measured values over time. Even if the transmittance variable filter exists between the shell sample and the detector, it does not hinder the optical measurement of the shell.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an optical measurement portion of a conventional shell / grain determining apparatus.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a shell particle discriminating apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing a main part of FIG. 2 and a part corresponding to FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a characteristic curve diagram showing a relationship between an applied voltage and transmittance of the light transmittance variable filter according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an operation flowchart for detecting and storing a standard measurement value at the time of product shipment.

FIG. 6 is an operation flowchart at the time of standard adjustment performed prior to optical measurement of shell particles.

FIG. 7 is an operation flowchart when performing optical measurement of shell particles.

[Explanation of symbols]

 G Shell 1 Rotating plate 2 Hole 5 Light source 13 Microcomputer 24 Optical system block 27, 28 Light irradiation unit 29, 29 Detector 40 Light transmittance variable filter 41 Control circuit

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A shell particle discriminating device for irradiating shell particles with light and detecting and analyzing reflected light or transmitted light from the shell particles to determine the quality of the shell particles. At least one hole for accommodating therein, and at least a lower part of the hole is made of a light-transmitting material, and a shell-grain holder, and the shell-grain in the hole when the hole is at the measurement position. Means for irradiating light; means for detecting light from the shell particles irradiated with light by the light irradiating means; arranged in close proximity to the measurement position to transmit or reflect light from the light irradiating means. And a light transmittance variable filter adapted to receive light by the light detecting means. 2. The shell-particle discriminating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of the light transmittance variable filters are formed in a multilayer structure.