This sorter uses a camera to constantly monitor food products traveling on a conveyor belt at 1.5m/s. Any foreign matter such as plastic or plant debris is detected and removed with an air knife.

“Right now we are running the demonstration using dried cabbage on the conveyor belt. We developed this to target customers such as dehydrated vegetable producers, or shops that handle small fish, or seaweed.”

“Up until now one camera has been able to distinguish a small area only 150mm wide, but now one camera can inspect an area four times as wide, or 600mm, so this equipment can process four times as much. The cost has been around 20 million yen for a four camera system, but we have been able to lower that to 12.8 million yen.”

The air knife that removes foreign matter with pinpoint accuracy features 120 nozzles, each with a 5mm wide pitch. In the case of the dehydrated cabbage in the demonstration, it can process 300 to 400kg per hour.

“There can be a lot of debris like bits of plastic blown around by the wind, and this debris can get on the cabbage. It also helps to remove bits of brown dried material.”

“We are dedicated to using an area sensor method to capture images for sorting. The line sensor method that has been used until now has limits on the sorting precision, but the area sensor method can capture the shape of the product, making even better sorting possible.”

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