JPS594656B2 - Appearance inspection equipment for solid preparations - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an apparatus for inspecting the appearance of pharmaceutical preparations such as tablets and capsules or pellet-like preparations for other uses (hereinafter collectively referred to as solid preparations) to determine their quality. .

Appearance inspection of this type of solid drug has traditionally been carried out with the naked eye of humans, but problems such as a decline in sorting ability due to fatigue and variations in sorting standards have long been a problem, leading to rising labor costs and the need for faster speeds. Along with these demands, the demand for mechanized testing is increasing.

By the way, when mechanizing the visual inspection of solid preparations, (
b) The structure should be such that the supply of solid preparations is carried out automatically and smoothly.

(b) The solid preparation should be configured so that at least one surface and the opposite surface (in the case of a capsule, the upper and lower half surfaces when placed horizontally) can be automatically observed.

(c) When one surface of the solid preparation differs in appearance from the semi-opposite surface (for example, when a mark exists only on one surface or when both sides have different colors)
The configuration should be such that it can also deal with such problems.

(d) The structure should be simple and easy to maintain and inspect.

However, if the solid dosage form is small, it is generally difficult to observe both sides of the solid dosage form at the same time in order to meet the requirement (b) above. After observing one surface, the solid dosage form must be inverted using an inversion mechanism to observe the other surface.

In this case, considering the requirement (c) above,
The reversing mechanism is required to be free from mechanical vibrations and shocks. This is because for each solid preparation, the observation results on one surface and the observation results on the other surface are definitely 1.
Since a one-to-one correspondence must be used for comprehensive judgment, it is possible that when a solid preparation is turned over, the positions of the solid preparation and another solid preparation may be swapped, or the solid preparation may not have been filled by chance. This is because there should be no possibility that the solid preparation will change its location. From this point of view, when examining conventional visual inspection devices of this type, it was found that, to the best of the applicant's knowledge, no device that completely satisfies the above-mentioned (a) to (d) has been realized.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus that satisfies all of the above-mentioned requirements (a) to (d), enables smooth reversal of solid preparations, and automatically performs error-free visual inspection. I will do it.

To achieve this objective, the basic feature of the present invention is the use of two adjoining drum-shaped conveyors as a reversing mechanism for solid preparations.

By the way, the use of two adjoining drum-shaped conveyance units for reversing the position of solid preparations has already been implemented, for example, in double-sided printing apparatuses for printing symbols, company marks, etc. for solid preparations. However, in this device, since it is only necessary to invert the surfaces of the solid preparations, there is no need for one-to-one correspondence between the two sides of each solid preparation as described above. Therefore, simply replacing the printing mechanism in this device with an observation mechanism cannot achieve the above objective. Therefore, according to the present invention, a pass/fail determination signal based on the observation result of one surface of the solid preparation is temporarily stored in a storage device such as a shift register, and based on this storage signal and the observation result of the other surface of the solid preparation. Combined with the pass/fail determination signal, a comprehensive pass/fail determination is made. When using a shift register as a storage device, it is sufficient to prepare a shift register with the number of bits equal to the number of solid preparations existing between one observation device and the other observation device. in this case,
When the pass/fail determination signal per surface of one solid drug consists of multiple bits, a shift register with a corresponding number of parallel bits may be used. , similar shift registers may be provided depending on the number. Of course, it is also possible to perform software processing using a normal random access memory as the storage device. Furthermore, as a particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, the above-mentioned (a) and (
In order to satisfy the requirement (d), it is preferable to provide a drum-shaped conveyance section exclusively for supplying solid preparations.

This three-drum system exhibits remarkable effects when put into practical use. The configuration and effects of the embodiments of the present invention will be explained below based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 conceptually shows the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.
1 is a first drum-shaped conveyance unit (hereinafter referred to as “first drum”), 2 is a second drum-shaped conveyance unit (hereinafter referred to as “second drum”), and 3 is a third solid drug supply unit. This is a drum-shaped conveyance section (hereinafter referred to as the 33rd drum).

As shown in FIG. 2, the third drum 3 consists of a hollow cylindrical container having a plurality of through holes 35 at equal intervals along the circumferential direction, and is rotated by an appropriate rotation 1 drive mechanism. rotated in the direction. The solid preparation 30 supplied from the hopper 21 in FIG. 1 is transferred to the third drum 3 as shown in FIG.
A predetermined amount is stored inside the drum, and as the drum rotates, the through holes 35 are filled one by one and transported upward. The outer guide plate 33 prevents the solid preparation 30 from falling from the through hole 35. Solid preparation 30 is the third
When the solid preparation is transferred to a position where the drum 3 and the first drum 1 are in contact with each other, the solid preparation is transferred from the third drum 3 to the first drum 1. As this transfer method, for example, the third
As shown in FIG. let me,
It is preferable to transfer the solid preparation 30 by evacuating the air in the vacuum chamber 31 using a suitable negative pressure generating means such as a pump. In this case, the through holes 35 of the third drum 3 and the holes 37 of the first drum 1 must coincide with each other at the positions where both drums meet, but this is due to the mechanical characteristics of the drum, the through holes, and the holes. This can be achieved by increasing the processing accuracy. If there is a concern about rotational phase deviation between the two drums during long-term continuous operation, this can be dealt with by adjusting the position of the drums through occasional inspection or by installing an automatic alignment mechanism. An example of the latter would be the application of register control technology in rotary printing presses. Now, returning to FIG. 1 again, the solid preparation transferred from the third drum 3 to the first drum 1 is transferred along the outer periphery of the first drum 1 as the drum rotates. One surface is inspected by the first observation device 4 at approximately the topmost position.

As the observation device, the second observation device 5 described later is also similar, but it is preferable to use an industrial television camera. Specific aspects of observation by the observation device will be explained in detail later with reference to FIG. 9. The solid preparation that has passed through the first observation device 4 is further transferred, and in some cases, another sensor 10 is used to perform additional inspection on items that cannot be inspected by the first observation device 4, such as the thickness of the tablet. After being inspected, the drum is further transported to a position where the first drum 1 and the second drum 2 are in contact with each other. In this position, the solid preparation 3 is moved again as shown in FIG. 3b using the same mechanism as shown in FIG. 3a.
0 is transferred from the first drum 1 to the second drum 2. In Fig. 3b, 3'' indicates a vacuum chamber, and 36'' indicates a fixed wall. To facilitate transfer, the fixed wall 36 is shown in Fig. 3b.
As shown in the figure, the end is placed before the position where the first drum 1 and the second drum 2 meet, so that the vacuum effect inside the first drum 1 at the transfer position does not affect the solid preparation to be transferred. It should be avoided. In some cases, the solid lumber may be pushed out from the inside of the first drum 1 toward the second drum 2 by air pressure or mechanical force at the transfer position. The solid preparation transferred to the second drum 2 in this way is transferred over the second drum 2 while exposing the surface opposite to that on the first drum 1, and is transferred to the second drum 2 at approximately the lowest position of the drum. The surface is inspected by the observation device 5.

The output signals of the first observation device 4, the second observation device 5, and in some cases the sensor 10 are transmitted to the first discriminator 6, the second discriminator 7, the storage device 8 and the integrated Processed by the judgment device 9, based on the overall quality judgment result, non-defective products are transferred to the non-defective tank 23 via the non-defective transfer pipe 22.
The defective products are transferred to the defective product tank 2 via the defective product transfer pipe 24.
5 and are sorted and transported. The above is an explanation mainly of the solid preparation transfer process of the embodiment of the three-drum internal feeding system based on Fig. 1. In order to enable reliable transfer with less mechanical impact, it is advantageous to configure the solid preparation storage portions of the first and second drums as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5.

That is, in FIG. 4, as is clear from a comparison with FIG. 2, the holes for accommodating solid preparations in the first drum 1 and the second drum 2 are formed into accommodating protrusions 38 whose accommodating surfaces are concave. has been changed.

This accommodation protrusion 38 is connected to the vacuum suction hole 32 as shown in FIG.
The solid preparation 30 is reliably captured on the accommodating surface of the accommodating protrusion 38 by the negative pressure of the vacuum chamber 31 formed by the fixed wall 36. Providing the accommodation protrusion 38 shortens the transfer distance of the solid preparation, which not only further reduces the possibility of undesirable movement or damage to the solid preparation, but also makes it easier to determine whether the thickness or diameter of the solid preparation is good or bad. Furthermore, it has the advantage of making it possible to observe aspects of solid preparations. Next, an embodiment of the same three-drum external supply type apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 6, parts corresponding to those in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 are given the same reference numerals.

In the embodiment of FIG. 6, the solid preparations supplied from the hopper 21 are stored in a container 39 and filled individually into holes (not shown) provided at equal intervals on the outer peripheral wall of the third drum. It is becoming more and more common. Since the solid preparation is thus supplied outside the drum, this is referred to as an external supply type. If the third drum is an external supply type,
There is an advantage that the supply status can be visually checked from the outside. Further, it is preferable that the rotation direction of the third drum is opposite to that shown in FIG. This is because, otherwise, a vacuum mechanism, a guide, etc. for holding the solid preparation fixedly under the third drum would be required. Along with this, the rotation directions of the first drum and the second drum and the arrangement of the first observation device 4 and the second observation device 5 are reversed. The rest of the structure and operation of the embodiment shown in FIG. 6 are the same as those described with respect to FIG. 1, so their explanation will be omitted. It should be noted that 10 and 11 are additional sensors, which may be special chemical sensors for checking subtle shades, etc., for example. FIG. 7 is an embodiment of a more compact apparatus, and shows an example of a two-drum internal feeding system.

In this embodiment, the first drum 1 itself has a function of supplying the solid preparation, and the solid preparation supply section according to the present invention corresponds to the hopper 21. The first drum 1 has through holes 35 at equal intervals in the peripheral wall, as illustrated in FIG.
Outer guide plate 33 on the outside, inner guide plate 34 on the inside
are arranged respectively. The solid preparations 30 stored inside the first drum 1 are individually filled into each through-hole 35 and transported upward while being held by two guide plates 33 and 34. One surface of the solid preparation is inspected by the first observation device 4 at the uppermost end of the drum, and is further transferred until it reaches a position where it adjoins the second drum 2, ie, a transfer position 1. At this position, it is transferred to the hole (which may be a receiving protrusion with a receiving surface) 37 of the second drum 2. This hole is provided with a vacuum suction hole 33 (not shown) as shown in FIG. 4
It is transported around the top of the second drum 2, where the second
The other surface is inspected by the observation device 5. The process of sorting the products into good and defective products based on a comprehensive judgment of the output signals from both observation devices is the same as that explained with reference to FIG. 1, so the explanation will be omitted here. In this embodiment, since both observation devices are disposed above, there is an advantage that maintenance and inspection of the observation devices is easy. Although this two-drum internal supply system has the advantage of making the entire device compact, it is better to use a three-drum system in which the solid drug supply section is the third drum, which separates the functions in terms of maintenance and inspection of the rotating mechanism. It has been praised for being easy to work with. In addition, 2
Although it is possible to use a drum system for external supply, there are some difficulties in the positional relationship between the observation device and the supply section. Next, the overall quality determination system, which is another feature other than the transport and transfer mechanism of the present invention, will be explained with reference to FIG.

Although FIG. 9 shows the case of a three-drum system, a completely similar determination method can be adopted for a two-drum system as well.

First, one surface of the solid preparation transferred on the first drum 1 is inspected by the first observation device 4 and an additional sensor 10 . The first observation device 4 is schematically illustrated here as an industrial television/video camera. Generally, when performing visual inspection or pattern recognition of moving objects using an industrial television camera, a strobe device or mechanical or electrical shutter is used to fix the image of the object so that each object is positioned at a predetermined position. Normally, the television camera is configured to take an image only when the location is reached, but it is assumed that such a means is used in this embodiment as well, although it is not shown in the drawings. The sensor 10 is, for example, an optical sensor having a filter, and is used to check subtle hues that cannot be detected with a television camera. The output signals of the television camera and sensor are sent to the first discrimination device 6, where scratches, irregularities, size, etc. on the surface of the solid preparation are discriminated using well-known pattern recognition technology, and this pass/fail discrimination signal is a simple The signal is stored as an 1-bit signal in the case of a factor, or as a multi-bit signal in the case of a plurality of factors, in the storage device 8, which is formed of, for example, a shift register. This storage device is shifted one step each time each solid preparation is determined.
If a normal random access memory is used as the storage device, the stored contents may be transferred to the next address each time a solid preparation is determined. When the surface of the solid dosage form is inverted by transfer between the first drum 1 and the second drum 2,
This time, the second observation device 5 and sensor 11 inspect the surface on the opposite side, and based on this output, the second discrimination device 7 makes a quality determination. When the storage device 8 is a shift register, the capacity of the shift register is
A solid preparation (more precisely, a hole for accommodating a solid preparation) that exists between directly below the second observation device 4 and directly below the second observation device 5.
If the numbers match the numbers, the quality determination signal for the other surface of a certain solid preparation is outputted from the second determination device 7, and at the same time, the quality determination signal for one surface of the same solid preparation is outputted from the storage device 8.
Since the solid preparation is read out from the last stage of the test, the comprehensive judgment device 9 can finally judge whether the solid preparation is a good product or a defective product based on both quality judgment signals.
The system of the present invention, which performs a comprehensive evaluation, is effective when one surface of a solid preparation differs from the other surface in appearance.

In this case, it may not be possible to conclude that the product is defective just by observing one surface (it goes without saying that it cannot be determined that the product is good). That is,
For example, if a fixed preparation that is white on one surface and yellow on the other side is considered to be good, a comprehensive judgment is always required to determine that it is defective if both sides are white or yellow. This is because, as is clear from the form in which the solid preparation is supplied, the surface of the solid preparation that faces the first observation device is not uniquely determined. Furthermore, the method of comprehensive evaluation as in the present invention is also effective when both surfaces of the solid preparation are identical in appearance.

This is due to the sorting mechanism for good and defective products (22 in Figure 1).
25) is placed only in one place, that is, on the second drum side, in any case, the pass/fail determination signal based on the output of the first observation device must be read into the storage device and shifted. Since the output of the first observation device and the pass/fail determination signal based on the output of the second observation device can be used simultaneously, it is possible to perform statistical processing, such as investigating the frequency of occurrence of solid preparations that are defective on both sides. Because it will be. Note that the first discriminating device and the second discriminating device can be made common by using the same discriminating device in a time-sharing manner. As described above, according to the present invention, the requirement (b) mentioned at the beginning can be satisfied by automatically reversing the observation surface of the solid preparation using at least two drum-shaped conveyors. By using one of them or additionally a third drum-shaped conveying section and using this as a supply section for the solid preparation, the requirement of (a) at the beginning can be satisfied, and further In addition to satisfying the requirement (c) at the beginning by intervening a storage device,
As a whole, since a long-range mechanism such as a belt conveyor is not used, it is possible to fully satisfy the requirement (d) at the beginning of the invention, which is structurally simple and easy to maintain and inspect.

It goes without saying that the observation device in the present invention is not limited to an industrial television camera, but may be another two-dimensional imaging device such as a fixed imaging camera.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an equipment layout diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a sectional view of main parts showing the transfer process of solid preparations in a three-drum system.
Fig. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the main part showing the transfer process of solid preparation between drums, Fig. 4 is a cross-sectional view of the main part showing a modification of Fig. 2, and Fig. 5 is a main part showing a modification of Fig. 3. A sectional view, FIG. 6 is an equipment layout diagram of another embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 7 is an equipment layout diagram of a two-drum type embodiment, and FIG. 8 is a supply of solid preparations in the embodiment of FIG. 7. FIG. 9 is a sectional view of a main part showing the transfer process, and a block diagram showing a circuit system for visual inspection. In each figure, common symbols indicate the same or equivalent parts, and the correspondence between the main parts and the symbols is as follows. 1...First drum, 2...Second drum, 3...Third drum, 4...First observation device, 5... ...Second observation device, 6...
・First discrimination device, 7...Second discrimination device, 8...
... Storage device, 9 ... Comprehensive judgment device, 30
...Solid preparation.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A supply unit for solid preparations, a first drum-shaped conveyance unit that conveys the supplied solid preparations individually at regular intervals so that one surface of the supplied solid preparations can be observed, and a first A second drum conveys the solid preparations individually at regular intervals so that the other surface of the solid preparation can be observed.
a drum-shaped conveyance section, first and second observation devices that are provided in close proximity to the first and second drum-shaped conveyance sections and observe the surface state of each solid preparation, and observation results of both observation devices. a discriminating device for discriminating pass/fail, and a first
a storage device for individually storing a pass/fail determination signal based on the observation results of the observation device for each solid preparation;
An appearance inspection device for solid preparations, characterized in that an overall quality judgment of the appearance of each solid preparation is made using a quality judgment signal based on the observation result of the observation device and a quality judgment signal stored in the storage device. 2. An apparatus for visual inspection of solid preparations according to claim 1, characterized in that the solid preparation supply section is formed as a third drum-shaped conveyance section. 3. In the device according to claim 2, the third drum-shaped conveying section has a hole for accommodating a solid preparation that passes through the inside and outside of the drum, so that the solid preparation is stored inside the drum. An appearance inspection device for solid preparations, which is characterized by: 4. In the device according to claim 2, the third drum-shaped conveying section has a hole for accommodating a solid preparation on the outer periphery of the drum, and the solid preparation is supplied to this hole from the outside of the drum. A visual inspection device for solid preparations characterized by the following. 5. In the device according to claim 1, the first drum-shaped conveying section has a hole for accommodating a solid preparation that passes through the inside and outside of the drum, so that the solid preparation is stored inside the drum. An appearance inspection device for solid preparations, which is characterized by: 6. In the device according to claim 1, the first drum-shaped conveying section has a hole for accommodating a solid preparation on the outer periphery of the drum, and the solid preparation is supplied to this hole from the outside of the drum. Appearance inspection device 7 for solid preparations characterized by
In the device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, the first drum-shaped conveyance section and the second drum-shaped conveyance section have a housing protrusion having a solid preparation housing surface on the outer periphery. Apparatus 8 for visual inspection of solid preparations, characterized in that the apparatus is provided at equal intervals.In the apparatus according to claim 5 or 6, the second drum-shaped conveying section includes accommodation protrusions having a solid preparation accommodation surface. 1. A visual inspection device for solid preparations, characterized in that said solid preparations are provided at equal intervals on the outer periphery. 9. An apparatus for visual inspection of solid preparations according to claim 7 or 8, characterized in that the housing protrusion is provided with a vacuum suction hole that communicates with a vacuum chamber within the drum.