Cutting – Operation controlled by detector means responsive to work – With plural work-sensing means
Patent
1993-12-23
1995-12-26
Seidel, Richard K.
Cutting
Operation controlled by detector means responsive to work
With plural work-sensing means
83365, 83367, 83368, 834031, 834352, 83932, 99643, A23N 1504
Patent
active
054777623
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to an installation for the automatic cutting of mushroom stems, comprising conveying means capable of bringing the said mushrooms to a cutting station comprising a cutting device intended to trim the mushrooms individually.
The invention has a particularly advantageous application in the field of trimming cultivated mushrooms, in particular before canning them.
In general, the purpose of the operation of cutting the mushroom stems, also called trimming, is to eliminate as waste product the ends of stems on which cultivation residues remain, such as earth, compost or mycelian fibres.
French patent N.degree. 2 276 005 discloses, for example, an installation for the automatic cutting of mushroom stems according to the preamble in which conveying means, constituted by two substantially parallel belts, carry the mushrooms to a cutting device whose position with respect to the belts is fixed.
The disadvantage of this type of installation is that, the size of the mushroom stems being very variable depending on their source, the cutting height is not always optimum. In particular, for mushrooms whose stems are very long, a large quantity of material is lost, while the shortest mushroom stems can escape cutting, giving untrimmed mushrooms at the output of the installation which then have to be separated out manually.
In order to overcome this disadvantage, provision is sometimes made to subject the mushrooms to a preliminary sorting in order to retain only those for which the stem cutting can take place at an appropriate height. The mushrooms which do not conform at the preliminary sorting are rejected. However, this technique requires an additional operation which reduces the productivity of the installation.
Furthermore, the technical problem to be solved by the subject of the present invention is the production of an installation for the automatic cutting of mushroom stems according to the preamble which would produce an increase in material because of the optimisation of the height of the cut waste, and an increase in productivity because of the elimination of sorting stations.
The solution to the technical problem presented consists, according to the present invention, in that the said cutting station also comprises, on the one hand, an optical device for recognising the shape of the mushroom capable of supplying a control signal representing the exact length (ho) of the stem of each mushroom and, on the other hand, control means capable of accurately and continuously adjusting the relative position of the cutting device and of the mushroom stem as a function of the control signal supplied by the optical shape recognition device, without risk of errors caused by the possible presence of mycelian fibres extending the mushroom stem.
Thus, it is possible to cut the stems of the mushrooms at a height adapted to each mushroom taken individually in order to limit the cutting to the waste alone without loss of material. The relative position of the cutting device with respect to the mushroom being adjustable, it is of no use to sort the mushrooms according to the length of their stems, and this gives the sought increase in productivity.
According to a first embodiment of the installation of the invention, the said detection means comprise an infra-red telemetry device.
In a second embodiment of the installation according to the invention, the said detection means comprise an optical shape recognition device capable of supplying the said control means with a control signal representing the length of the stem of each mushroom. In particular, it is foreseen that the said plurality of receivers constitutes a video recording device. It is also envisaged that the said optical shape recognition device comprises, on the one hand, at least one radiation transmitter and, on the other hand, facing the said transmitter, at least one plurality of receivers of the said radiation, the said transmitter and the said plurality of receivers being disposed on the path of the mushrooms in such a way that, du
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S.A. Royal Champignon
Schrock Allan M.
Seidel Richard K.
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