KR101464999B1 - Catridge base for medicine packing machine - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed is a cartridge base for a pharmaceutical packaging apparatus which is equipped with a cartridge case for accommodating one kind of tablet and discharges the tablets of the mounted cartridge case. The cartridge base includes a tablet sensing unit for two-dimensionally sensing tablets discharged through an outlet of the cartridge base according to prescription data, and a controller for predicting a three-dimensional shape by sensing data of the tablet sensing unit, And a control unit for determining whether or not it is discharged. Thereby accurately confirming whether the tablets to be discharged are discharged or not.

Description

{Cartridge base for medicine packing machine}

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a medicine packing apparatus, and more particularly, to a technique for detecting whether or not a tablet contained in each cartridge constituting a medicine packing apparatus is discharged.

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional pharmaceutical packaging apparatus, Fig. 2 is a perspective view of a conventional cartridge, and Fig. 3 is a perspective view of a cartridge base.

As shown in Fig. 1, the pharmaceutical packaging apparatus is composed of an upper structure 10 and a lower structure 20. As shown in Fig. In the upper structure 10, a plurality of containers 30 are configured to be drawn out, and each of the containers 30 includes cartridges 40. The cartridge 40 is composed of a cartridge case 50 and a cartridge base 60 as shown in Fig. The cartridge case 50 accommodates any one kind of tablet, and the cartridge case 50 is mounted on the cartridge base 60. [ As is well known, tablets received in the cartridge case 50 are discharged through a discharge port formed in the cartridge base 60 and are collected in a hopper located at the lower portion of the drug packing apparatus.

3, an optical sensor 70 is mounted on the discharge port 61 of the cartridge base 60. As shown in Fig. This sensor 70 is used for detecting whether or not the tablets are discharged. Therefore, the discharge of the tablet can be confirmed. However, the optical sensor 70 for detecting the discharge of the conventional tablet only detects whether the object passes through the discharge port 61 or not. Therefore, if a case such as dusting of the powder occurs, which is not a refining agent, it may be mistaken for the refining discharge. Further, when the cartridge case 50 is accommodated with a tablet of a different kind than that of the designated kind, it can not be detected that the tablet is discharged with the wrong tablet. This eventually leads to erroneous dispensing.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a cartridge base which can accurately detect whether or not the tablets to be discharged are discharged.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a cartridge base for a drug packaging apparatus for loading a cartridge case for accommodating one type of tablet according to an aspect of the present invention, And a control unit for predicting a three-dimensional shape using the sensing data of the tablet sensing unit and determining whether the tablet is discharged according to the predicted three-dimensional shape.

The predicted three-dimensional shape information includes at least one of a tablet length, a width, and a thickness.

The tablet sensing unit includes a transmission array for transmitting an array optical signal to a sensing target area, and a reception array for receiving the transmitted array optical signal.

Wherein the transmit array comprises a first transmit array for transmitting a first array optical signal and a second transmit array arranged for transmitting a second array signal in a direction perpendicular to the first array optical signal, 1 array signal and a second receiving array receiving the second array signal.

The tablet sensing unit further senses the color of the discharge tablet, and the controller determines whether the tablet is discharged by further considering the sensed color.

The control unit counts the number of tablets discharged through the outlet, compares the count number with the number of tablets discharged according to the prescription data, and outputs a notification signal when the count is different.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention creates an effect of increasing the accuracy of determining whether or not a tablet is discharged.

In addition, the present invention distinguishes whether a discharged tablet is a corresponding tablet according to a prescription based on a three-dimensional shape and further a color, thereby creating an effect of preventing erroneous preparation.

Further, the present invention counts the number of tablets to be discharged, thereby creating an effect of further enhancing the precision of preparation.

1 is a perspective view of a conventional pharmaceutical packaging apparatus;
2 is a perspective view of a conventional cartridge;
3 is a perspective view of a conventional cartridge base;
4 is a block diagram of a cartridge base according to an embodiment of the present invention;
5 is a schematic illustration of a cartridge base according to one embodiment of the present invention.
6 illustrates the arrangement of a sensor array around an outlet according to one embodiment of the present invention.
7 is a diagram showing the change of tablet detection according to the shape of tablet.
8 is a view showing a change in purification detection in the case of debris.
9 is a diagram showing transmission timings and reception timings of a sensor array according to an embodiment of the present invention.
10 is a first example of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention.
11 is a second exemplary view of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention.
12 is a third example of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention.
13 is a fourth exemplary view of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention.
Fig. 14 is a fifth example of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention. Fig.
15 is a sixth example of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention.
16 is a seventh example of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention.
17 is a flowchart of a method of detecting a tablet discharge according to an embodiment of the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The foregoing and further aspects of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Figure 4 is a block diagram of a cartridge base according to an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 5 is a schematic view of a cartridge base according to an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 6 is a cross- FIG. 7 is a view showing the change of detection of the tablets according to the shape of the tablets according to the embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 8 is a view showing the arrangement of the sensor arrays in the case of the tablets according to the embodiment of the present invention FIG.

As shown in the figure, the cartridge base includes a communication unit 100, a storage unit 200, a tablet detection unit 300, and a control unit 400. Here, the cartridge base may be referred to as a tablet discharge unit. The communication unit 100 is a communication module for communication with a host that transmits prescribed data, and is configured to be capable of wired communication or wireless communication. The storage unit 200 may be a non-volatile memory, and the storage unit 200 stores programs and data necessary for controlling the overall operation of the cartridge base. In addition, the storage unit 200 may store information on the tablets to be accommodated in the cartridge case mounted on the cartridge base. The purification information may include three-dimensional shape information of the tablet, color information of the tablet, and the like. Here, the three-dimensional shape information includes at least one of length, width, and thickness information of the tablet. The shape of the tablets may be circular, rectangular, elliptical, etc. Because the length, width and thickness of the tablets vary depending on the shape and size of the tablets, the three-dimensional shape information can be easily used to distinguish tablets have. Likewise, the color information of the tablet can be used easily.

The tablet detection unit 300 two-dimensionally senses tablets discharged through the cartridge base. For this purpose, the tablet detection unit 300 detects the discharge tablets using the photosensor array. The optical sensor may be an infrared (IR) based sensor, an ultrasonic based sensor, or a laser based sensor. The tablet detection unit 300 includes a transmission array 310, a reception array 320, a filter unit 330, and a signal conversion unit 340. The transmission array 310 is configured such that the light emitting elements are arranged, and the reception array 320 is configured such that the light receiving elements corresponding to the light emitting elements are arranged. As is well known, the filter unit 330 filters the signal output from the light receiving elements constituting the receiving array 320 to a specific wavelength band, and the signal converting unit 340 converts the filtered analog signal into a digital signal . In addition, the tablet detection unit 300 may include a color sensor for detecting the color of the tablet.

The arrangement of sensor arrays, i.e., transmit array 310 and receive array 320, is illustrated in Figs. As illustrated, the transmit array 310 and receive array 320 are disposed around the outlet 500 of the cartridge base. For example, if the outlet width is 50 mm and the length is 600 mm, 120 sensors should be placed in 10 longitudinal directions with a minimum width. As shown in Figure 6, the transmit array 310 includes a first transmit array 311 that transmits a first array signal to a region of interest to be sensed on the outlet 500, and a second transmit array 314 that transmits a second array signal 312, and the receiving array 320 comprises a first receiving array 321 for receiving a first array signal and a second receiving array 322 for receiving a second array signal. To this end, the first transmission array 311 and the first reception array 321 are positioned to correspond to each other, and the second transmission array 312 and the second reception array 322 are positioned to correspond to each other. The first transmission array 311 and the first reception array 321 are arranged on the X axis and the second transmission array 312 and the second reception array 322 are arranged on the Y axis will be. That is, the direction of the first array signal and the direction of the second array signal are arranged at right angles. This is to enable two-dimensional detection of whether or not the tablet is discharged.

In addition to the two-dimensional sensing, the transmission array 310 periodically transmits a signal according to a predetermined timing, so that the reception array 320 periodically receives signals. However, when the tablet is discharged through the outlet 500, some transmission signals of the transmission array 310 are not received by the reception array 320. Such a phenomenon changes while the tablets pass through the detection target region of the discharge port 500. [ For example, when the tablet is circular, the sensing change with respect to the sensing target area may be the same as that of FIG. 7 (a) according to the passage of time. In the case where the tablets are rectangular, it may be as shown in Fig. 7 (b). 8 (a), 8 (b), and 8 (c) show examples in which debris is detected rather than tablets.

The control unit 400 may be implemented as one or more control units. The control unit 400 receives the prescription data from the host through the communication unit 100. [ The prescription data includes information on the number of tablets discharged. Upon receipt of the prescription data, the control unit 400 controls the tablets contained in the cartridge case to be discharged. At this time, the control unit 400 controls the tablets to be discharged as many times as the number of discharged tablets according to the prescription data. Tablets contained in the cartridge case are discharged through the outlet 500 of the cartridge base. Also, the control unit 400 predicts the three-dimensional shape using the sensing data of the tablet sensing unit 300 according to the tablet discharge, and determines whether or not the tablet is actually discharged based on the predicted three-dimensional shape. In detail, the control unit 400 can estimate the three-dimensional shape using the optical transmission time interval information and the sensing data of the tablet sensing unit 300. This can be sufficiently predicted from the change of the two-dimensional sensing data with the passage of time as shown in FIG. For reference, the two-dimensional sensing image data is expressed by Equation (1) when t = 0, and the three-dimensional shape image data is represented by Equation (2).

The control unit 400 acquires the three-dimensional shape information through the calculation for the three-dimensional shape prediction. At this time, the three-dimensional shape information includes at least one of length, width, and thickness information of the shape. The control unit 400 compares the obtained three-dimensional shape information with the three-dimensional shape information stored in the storage unit 200 to determine whether they are the same. If the color information is included in the sensed data, the controller 400 further compares the sensed color information with the color information stored in the storage unit 200 to determine whether they are the same. The error range can be set when comparing the same. If the result of the comparison is the same, the controller 400 determines that the tablet of the corresponding type is discharged. However, if it is determined that they are not the same, the controller 400 determines that the tablet of the corresponding type is not discharged. In this case, the control unit 400 performs an action to notify the manager. This action may be to notify the administrator of the abnormal discharge of tablets by transmitting a notification signal to the host through the communication unit 100 and outputting a notification sound or a screen output from the host. In addition, the controller 400 may compare the number of discharged tablets detected by the tablet detector 300 with the number of discharged tablets contained in the prescription data to determine whether they are the same. If they are not the same, the controller 400 performs an action to notify the manager.

9 is a diagram showing transmission timings and reception timings of a sensor array according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the illustrated example, D_on indicates reception in a state that the LED is on, and D_off indicates that reception light is detected in a state where the LED is off. When the light amount is more than a certain amount when D_off is D_off, the control unit 400 determines that it is an influence of a disturbance light or a malfunction, and notifies the manager of the occurrence of an error. That is, when the control unit 400 does not transmit light from the transmission LED but detects light of a certain amount or more through the corresponding reception LED of the transmission LED, the controller 400 informs the manager that an error has occurred. Here, as a notification method, a screen output or a warning sound output may be used.

The control unit 400 controls the light intensity of the transmission LEDs constituting the transmission array 310 and determines whether the purification detection unit 300 has failed through the reception of the reception LEDs constituting the reception array 320 . For example, when the transmission LED is turned on but no light is received by the reception LED, the controller 400 determines that the transmission LED has a weak light intensity and can increase the light intensity of the transmission LED. However, if the light intensity of the transmitting LED is adjusted but the receiving LED does not receive the light, the controller 400 determines that the transmission LED has failed or has reached the end of its life, and notifies the manager of the failure. For reference, it is desirable to adjust the light intensity of the transmitting LED when such a phenomenon continues for a certain period of time since some receiving LEDs do not receive light at the time of discharging the tablets.

10 is a first exemplary view of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention.

For convenience of explanation, it is assumed that the optical transmission diodes D1, D2, D3, D4, and D5 and the light receiving transistors TR1, TR2, TR3, TR4, and TR5 have five, respectively. The light is sequentially turned on from D1 to D5 and the light is transmitted to the predetermined time points T1_0, T1_1, T1_2, T1_3, and T1_4. And all the transistors TR1, TR2, TR3, TR4, and TR5 remain on. At this time, there is a time gap between on-switching of each diode. That is, there is a time gap between T1_0 and T1_1, between T1_1 and T1_2, between T1_2 and T1_3, and between T1_3 and T1_4. In fact, all the transistors are turned off in the gap period. The reason why the optical transmission time intervals of the diodes are made different from each other is to prevent reception errors due to the adjacent light. However, if there are many sensor arrays, diodes that are separated from each other can be driven simultaneously so that there is no fear of receiving errors. The control unit 400 may control the transmission array 310 and the reception array 320 as shown in FIG.

11 is a second exemplary view of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention.

The optical transmission time interval of the diode is the same as that of the example of Fig. 10, and the transistor is switched ON only in the ON time period of the corresponding diode. That is, only TR1 corresponding to D1 is turned on when Dl is turned on, only TR2 corresponding to D2 is turned on when D2 is turned on, only TR3 corresponding to D3 is turned on when D3 is turned on, D4 Only TR4 corresponding to D5 is turned on. When D5 is turned on, only TR5 corresponding to D5 is turned on. In this way, power dissipation can be prevented when the number of sensor arrays used for tablet detection is large. The control unit 400 can control the activation of the light emitting elements constituting the transmission array 310 and the activation of the light receiving elements constituting the reception array 320 according to a predetermined rule as shown in FIG.

12 and 13 are a third example and a fourth example of the sensor array driving method according to the present invention.

11, the adjacent transistors of the transistors that are turned on are also turned on. This takes into consideration the case where light is received from the adjacent transistor due to the width of transmission light. When the sensor array is driven as in the example of FIG. 12 and FIG. 13, the sensitivity can be increased. The control unit 400 can control the activation of the light emitting elements constituting the transmission array 310 and the activation of the light receiving elements constituting the reception array 320 according to predetermined rules as shown in FIG. 12 or FIG.

14 and 15 are a fifth example and a sixth example of the sensor array driving method according to the present invention.

Some diodes of all the diodes are simultaneously turned on to transmit light and the corresponding transistors are turned on to receive light. If there are many sensor arrays, it is necessary to allocate different time intervals to transmit light. Thus driving some diodes simultaneously. This can shorten the time required for tablet detection. Also, by driving only the corresponding transistor, it is also possible to prevent waste of electric power. The controller 400 can control the activation of the light emitting elements constituting the transmission array 310 and the activation of the light receiving elements constituting the reception array 320 according to predetermined rules as shown in FIG.

16 is a seventh illustrative view of a sensor array driving method according to the present invention.

Some diodes of all the diodes are simultaneously turned on to transmit light and the corresponding transistors and transistors adjacent thereto are turned on to receive light. That is, the driving method of FIG. 16 is a combination of the driving method of FIG. 12 and the driving method of FIG. By doing so, the time required for detecting the tablets can be shortened, waste of electric power can be prevented, and light sensitivity can be increased. The controller 400 can control the activation of the light emitting elements constituting the transmission array 310 and the activation of the light receiving elements constituting the reception array 320 according to a predetermined rule as shown in FIG.

17 is a flowchart of a method of detecting a tablet discharge according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The control unit 400 receives the prescription data through the communication unit 100 (S100), and controls to discharge the tablets contained in the cartridge case according to the prescription data (S200). At this time, the prescription data includes information on the number of tablets discharged, and the controller 400 controls the tablets to be discharged by the number of discharged tablets. The control unit 400 receives the detection data from the tablet detection unit 300 according to the discharge of the tablet. The controller 400 predicts a three-dimensional shape using the input sensed data to obtain three-dimensional shape information (S300). The three-dimensional shape information includes at least one of length, width, and thickness information of the tablet. The control unit 400 compares the obtained three-dimensional shape information with the three-dimensional shape information stored in the storage unit 200 and determines whether the three-dimensional shape information is matched (S400). If they do not match, the controller 400 determines that the tablets to be discharged are not discharged but that other types of tablets have been discharged, or that debris has been detected, and notifies the administrator of the debris (S500). For example, the control unit 400 transmits a signal to the host via the communication unit 100 indicating that there is a problem in the discharge of tablets.

Meanwhile, if color information is included in the sensed data, the controller 400 may further compare colors to determine whether they match or not in step S400. Although not shown, the controller 400 may compare the number of discharged tablets with the number of discharged tablet tablets according to the prescription data to determine whether they match. If they do not match, the control unit 400 can notify the manager thereof.

The present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. Therefore, the disclosed embodiments should be considered in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. The scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description, and all differences within the scope of equivalents thereof should be construed as being included in the present invention.

100: communication unit 200:
300: tablet detection unit 310: transmission array
311: first transmission array 312: second transmission array
320: Receiving array 321: First receiving array
322: second receiving array 330: filter unit
340: signal converting section 400:

Claims (10)

A cartridge base for a medicament packaging apparatus, which is equipped with a cartridge case for accommodating one kind of tablet and discharges tablets of the cartridge case,
A tablet detector for two-dimensionally sensing tablets discharged through an outlet of the cartridge base according to prescription data; And
And a control unit for predicting a three-dimensional shape using the sensing data of the tablet sensing unit and determining whether the tablet is discharged according to the predicted three-dimensional shape,
Wherein the tablet detection unit comprises:
A transmission array for transmitting an array signal to a sensing target area; And
And a receiving array for receiving the transmitted array signals,
Wherein the controller controls activation of each of the light emitting elements constituting the transmission array according to a predetermined rule. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the information on the predicted three-dimensional shape includes at least one of a tablet length, a width, and a thickness. delete The method according to claim 1,
The transmission array comprising a first transmission array for transmitting a first array signal and a second transmission array arranged for transmitting a second array signal in a direction perpendicular to the first array signal,
Wherein the receiving array comprises a first receiving array for receiving the first array signal and a second receiving array for receiving the second array signal. delete The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the controller controls activation of each light receiving element constituting the receiving array according to a predetermined rule. A cartridge base for a medicament packaging apparatus, which is equipped with a cartridge case for accommodating one kind of tablet and discharges tablets of the cartridge case,
A tablet detector for two-dimensionally sensing tablets discharged through an outlet of the cartridge base according to prescription data; And
And a control unit for predicting the three-dimensional shape by the sensing data of the tablet sensing unit, sensing the color of the discharge tablet, and determining whether the tablet is discharged according to the predicted three-dimensional shape and the sensed color,
Wherein the tablet detection unit comprises:
A transmission array for transmitting an array signal to a sensing target area; And
And a receiving array for receiving the transmitted array signals. 8. The method of claim 7,
Wherein the control unit counts the number of tablets discharged through the discharge port, compares the count number with the number of tablets discharged according to the prescription data, and outputs a notification signal when the count is different. A cartridge base for a medicament packaging apparatus, which is equipped with a cartridge case for accommodating one kind of tablet and discharges tablets of the cartridge case,
A tablet detector for two-dimensionally sensing tablets discharged through an outlet of the cartridge base according to prescription data; And
And a control unit for predicting a three-dimensional shape using the sensing data of the tablet sensing unit and determining whether the tablet is discharged according to the predicted three-dimensional shape,
Wherein the tablet detection unit comprises:
A transmission array for transmitting an array signal to a sensing target area; And
And a receiving array for receiving the transmitted array signals,
Wherein the controller determines that an error has occurred when a light amount of a predetermined amount or more is received in the corresponding light receiving element constituting the receiving array during optical non-transmission of the light emitting element constituting the transmitting array. A cartridge base for a medicament packaging apparatus, which is equipped with a cartridge case for accommodating one kind of tablet and discharges tablets of the cartridge case,
A tablet detector for two-dimensionally sensing tablets discharged through an outlet of the cartridge base according to prescription data; And
And a control unit for predicting a three-dimensional shape using the sensing data of the tablet sensing unit and determining whether the tablet is discharged according to the predicted three-dimensional shape,
Wherein the tablet detection unit comprises:
A transmission array for transmitting an array signal to a sensing target area; And
And a receiving array for receiving the transmitted array signals,
Wherein the control unit adjusts the light intensity of the light emitting device constituting the transmission array and determines whether the tablet sensing unit is malfunctioning by receiving light from the light receiving element constituting the reception array.

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