PCI-based Visual Inspection Technology Applications
(for the food industry)
(for the food industry)
Based in Belgium, BEST N.V. are leaders in new generation sorting equipment technology for the food processing industry. BEST N.V. sorting machines are based on camera, laser, LED and X-ray technology. For the latest version of their camera-based technology shape sorter - Xyclops, BEST N.V. developed the PCI driver for the Xyclops 9054 PLX-PCI cards with WinDriver, thereby saving months of development time.
BEST N.V.'s PCI-based sorting machine, the Xyclops, is a dedicated shape recognition sorter designed to detect those defects which cannot be separated by means of color and structure detection. If a shape difference remains, for example broken almonds or stems in green beans, Xyclops is able to sort these products. The multi-tasking setup results in high detection rates and low false rejection while implementing a touch screen user interface for ease of operation.
The BEST N.V. Xyclops team of engineers were pressured to get Xyclops to market fast. WinDriver enabled immediate access to the PCI hardware before having to write a line of code. "Our PCI cards use on a 9054 PLX controller chip. We used the 'Windriver for PLX IO devices' development toolkit and were able to develop the software interface between the application and the PCI device very rapidly. All we had to do was to use the predefined functions to access memory and registers on our boards. Using WinDriver we were able to complete the software development of the project in a reduced period of time. WinDriver supports both Visual C++ and Visual Basic, both of which programming languages were used in our software development - which further enabled us to jump start our software development," said Hans Deloof, Development and Service Engineer At BEST N.V.
The feed shaker spreads the product uniformly over the free-fall chute. The product then free falls down toward the inspection zone at a speed of more than 3 meters per second. The lighting system provides illumination for the product to be scanned in the inspection zone. Every single item is scanned by a camera attached to a PCI frame grabbing card. Different types of off-shaped products are identified by means of a front-sized optical system. While passing through the scan zone, signals are compared and evaluated against customer settings by means of image processing technology based on the shadow principle. The Windows 2000 operating system communicates with the PCI card using a driver based on WinDriver. WinDriver enables the basic communication between the software (in-house software based on Visual C++ and Visual Basic) and a custom-made PCI hardware card and provides the high-speed digital image input required during the product free-fall. Milli-seconds after scanning, off-shaped products are hit by timed high-speed air guns and diverted from their natural trajectory. Unwanted material ends up in a reject chute and good produce continues its way untouched to the production line. Due to the Xyclops' modular setup, several units can be placed next to each other with minimum space requirements. By customizing this image processing technology, BEST N.V.'s Xyclops Sorter is able to sort a various products and therefore targets several industries where sorting of food is required.
More about BEST N.V.
BEST N.V. just recently acquired the business unit 'Machine Vision', part of the division BarcoVision, that encloses all activities of sorting machines and visual inspection technologies within the Barco group. This acquisition will enable BEST N.V. to increase its market share in the field of hi-tech sorting machinery and thus can be considered as world market leader in the field of laser sorting technology. For more information on BEST N.V., go to: http://www.bestnv.com
Application Stories
Customer Testimonials
Back to Solutions Index
Can't find what you need?