A leading food packager required verification of an automated pack-out process for pickles. Pickle slices were automatically placed into a bottle in a two-step process. During the first step, if the original placement of the slices were incorrect, the secondary process would fail and cause backups and down time in the line.
The main challenge for this application was that pickles are wet and shiny, and differentiating between pickles and bottle was difficult. In addition, all components were required to be NEMA 4X, stainless steel suitable for a caustic and wash-down environment. Aptura Machine Vision Solutions (Lansing, MI, USA; www.aptura.com) provided the customer with a turnkey inspection station featuring a Vision IMPACT C30 machine vision processor from PPT Vision (Bloomington, MN, USA; www.pptvision.com) and standard resolution camera.
Illumination was accomplished with two LED bar lights on either side of the bottle opening, thereby illuminating only the tops of the product. Adjustable camera and lighting mounts and an air-driven reject mechanism were mounted to an existing conveyor. An operator interface console with flat-panel display was pedestal mounted near the inspection station.