Optics: measuring and testing – Inspection of flaws or impurities – Containers or enclosures
Patent
1995-03-27
1998-03-17
Rosenberger, Richard A.
Optics: measuring and testing
Inspection of flaws or impurities
Containers or enclosures
250223B, 348127, C01N 2132
Patent
active
057293406
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention disclosed herein pertains to a machine for inspecting bottles or the like through which light can be transmitted.
In beverage bottling lines inspection machines are used to detect and eliminate damaged or dirty bottles before they reach a bottle filling machine. Most pre-existing bottle filling machines require rotation of each bottle about its vertical axis while a thin vertically extensive light beam passes through the bottle for a projected image of the bottle sidewalls to be recorded. During rotation, substantially only the center of the bottle is currently recorded along a vertical line. A line scan camera may be used. The image of the bottle sidewall obtained is of sufficient quality to reveal or detect bottles that are damaged or dirty. In the pre-existing machine just outlined, rotation of the bottles as they arrive in the inspection zone requires that the bottles be mounted on rotationally driven plates that are carried on a carousel that has the mechanism for rotating the plates. This is a complicated and expensive structural arrangement which it would be desirable to avoid.
There is existing inspection apparatus which does not require rotation of the bottle during image recording of the sidewall as is disclosed in German specification DE-AS 26 17 457. In the patented apparatus, the sidewall region of the bottle is recorded by only one camera that views the bottle from different directions. This bottle inspection apparatus is of comparatively simple design but is subject to causing optical distortions due to the surface curvature of the bottles. With this arrangement, evaluation of the image for the presence of dirt or damage is difficult and uncertain.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention disclosed herein is an improvement over the inspection apparatus outlined in the preceding paragraphs. According to the invention, a machine for inspecting the sidewall of bottles or the like is achieved and implemented at comparatively low cost although the resulting images of the bottles are of good quality.
The improved bottle inspection apparatus uses an arrangement of mirrors which direct a plurality of individual beam paths that emerge from the sidewall region of a bottle that is transilluminated over its entire width through an image recording device such as a camera that has a charge coupled device (CCD) image plate. The arrangement ensures that the images projected to the camera by the individual beam paths are of identical size such that difficulties in image interpretation or evaluation are eliminated. The bottle wall inspection station can also be associated, in accordance with the invention, with an additional image recording device, such as another CCD camera, for checking the contour, type or color of the bottles that traverse the second inspection station. The second image recording device can be positioned so that its beam path intersects the beam paths of the sidewall inspection arrangement such that recording of both images can advantageously be triggered with only one camera triggering device.
How all of the foregoing general features and other more specific features of the invention are achieved and implemented will appear in the more detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention which will now be set forth in reference to the accompanying drawings.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic top plan view of a machine for inspecting bottles wherein the new sidewall inspection apparatus is used;
FIG. 2 is an enlarged representation of the bottle sidewall inspection apparatus that is shown in more demagnified form in FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a diagrammatic side elevational view of one of the beam paths extending from a luminescent screen to a camera that is depicted in reduced size in FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is a diagrammatic side elevational view of another one of the beam paths that is present in FIG. 2 as viewed in the direction in which the bottles are conveyed;
FIG. 5 is a third diagrammatic side elevational view of another o
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Griesbeck Karl
Haring Franz
Kronseder Hermann
Ruppelt Wolfgang
Krones AG Hermann Kronseder Maschinenfabrik
Rosenberger Richard A.
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