Method and apparatus for optically measuring the volume of generally spherical fruit
US4693607A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | May 12, 1986 |
| Grant date | Sep 15, 1987 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 12, 2006 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG01B11/00
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
A method and apparatus for optically measuring the volume of a succession of individual, generally spherical fruit, each located in a separate receptacle of a conveyor. A pair of linear, coplanar arrays of phototransducers are arranged to view a narrow examining region from orthogonal directions as the conveyor moves the fruit through it, and each array is read at regular intervals of time to produce a plurality of pairs of orthogonal width measurements for each fruit, each pair of measurements corresponding to a separate narrow cross section of the fruit. A microprocessor multiplies together each measurement pair and sums together the successive products to produce a measure of the fruit's volume. In addition, the microprocessor compares the maximum width measurement for each fruit with a count of the number of cross sections for the fruit, to ensure that the volume measurement is based on just a single item of fruit. The microprocessor also eliminates the effect of any light-reflecting debris in the receptacle adjacent to the fruit by detecting certain characteristic patterns in the signals derived from the two phototransducer arrays and substituting predetermined width estimates…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.