JPH0249146A - Rice grain quality discriminating device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To exactly discriminate the quality of a grain of rice by providing a step difference on a feed grain line groove of a vibration feed grain gutter and supplying grains of rice to a reflected and transmission light quantity measuring part at a gap by one grain each. CONSTITUTION:Grains of rice supplied from a rice grain supply hopper 21 pass through a vibration feed grain gutter 40 in which plural feed grain line grooves 41 are formed. In this case, the grains of rice are aligned by a step difference part 45 which is inclined and racked, and formed in the advance direction on the bottom face of the feed grain line groove 41. The aligned grains of rice are allowed to flow down at a gap by one grain each through an inclined gutter 50. On the upper part of the inclined gutter 50, a reflected light quantity measuring part 90 is provided, and also, on its lower part, a transmission light quantity measuring part 100 is provided, and the reflected light quantity and the transmission light quantity of the grains of rice which are aligned and flow down are measured. Its measured value is inputted to an operation control part and plural qualities are discriminated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a rice grain quality discriminating device for determining the quality of brown rice, polished rice, or unhulled rice.

[Conventional technology]

Grains such as rice grains are inspected in accordance with the Agricultural Products Standards Regulations based on the Agricultural Products Inspection Act and compared with standard products to determine the grade, and this inspection is carried out by agricultural product inspectors. The inspectors are people who are experts in grain inspection, and are trained to always make correct grading decisions, but because the inspection is done visually, it cannot be said to be perfect.

Therefore, as an apparatus for determining the powder quality of brown rice, for example,
125664, and the same method is published in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 125664.
It is disclosed in -153249 @ publication or 62-150141 publication.

That is, in JP-A-56-125664, - by irradiating each grain of brown rice with visible light and measuring the reflected light and transmitted light of the light, grain size adjustment, which is the powder quality of brown rice; This is a powder quality discriminating device for brown rice that attempts to distinguish milky grains, blue rice, brown rice, or North American rice, and the device in JP-A No. 57-153249 irradiates each grain of brown rice with a light beam of a desired wavelength. This method measures the transmittance and compares the transmittance with a predetermined threshold value to determine whether or not the particles are defective. The method of JP-A No. 62-150141 irradiates each grain of brown rice with light, and calculates the amount of diffusely transmitted light, the amount of converted reflected light, the amount of light of two arbitrary wavelengths in the added reflected light, and the amount of light for each grain of brown rice. The amount of transmitted light at each position is detected, and the ratio of the amount of diffusely transmitted light to the amount of diffusely reflected light, the ratio of the amount of light of two arbitrary wavelengths in the diffusely reflected light, and the ratio of the amount of transmitted light at two positions for each grain of brown rice are determined. The ratio of each light amount is calculated and processed to determine the quality of brown rice: regular grain, white belly, milky white grain, immature green grain, split grain, damaged grain, colored grain, green dead grain, and white dead grain. It's a method.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in these conventional devices and methods, the detection items that serve as standards for quality judgment are single data elements of the amount of reflected light and the amount of transmitted light, making accurate judgment difficult. could not. In other words, even if the grain is sized (normal grain), it may not be possible to determine it as sized because there are differences in the amount of reflected light m and transmitted light depending on the variety, production area, or growth conditions, and highly accurate determination cannot be expected. It was something I couldn't get.

For example, the frequency distribution of each grade of brown rice such as foreign matter, colored grains, and powdery quality is expressed as shown in Figure 8, and each brown rice is distributed along the X-axis (
Since the brightness (brightness = amount of reflected light) overlaps, it is impossible to accurately determine each quality no matter where the boundary line is placed.

In view of the above points, the technical object of the present invention is to provide a rice grain quality discriminating device that can more accurately determine the quality of rice grains.

[Means for solving problems]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the rice grain quality discriminating device of the present invention includes a vibrating grain feeding gutter that flows the rice grains supplied from the rice grain feeding hopper, and a vibrating grain feeding gutter that moves the bottom surface of the grain feeding groove provided in the grain feeding gutter. The rice grains flow in alignment due to the steps tilted in the direction.
The values measured by the reflected light amount measurement unit and the transmitted light amount measurement unit when rice grains pass through the inclined gutter are digitally processed by the arithmetic and control unit, and multiple values are calculated by combining the digitally processed values of the reflected light and transmitted light obtained in the above processing. This solution was achieved by determining the rice grains according to their quality, and sorting the rice grains using a separate vibrating grain sorting device connected to the discharge side of the slanted trough according to the quality determination result.

[For production]

By providing a step in the grain feeding groove of the vibrating grain feeding trough, the rice grains can be aligned without using a complicated structure, and each grain can be flowed down to the reflected/transmitted light measurement unit with gaps between them.

Digitally processing the measured values of the reflected light amount measurement unit and the transmitted light amount measurement unit that change over time, that is, the waveform measured by the measurement unit when the rice grain passes through the measurement unit, in the arithmetic and control unit makes it possible to detect changes in the waveform in minute units. A waveform can be characterized by multiple pieces of information, but in analog, one waveform can only be viewed as one piece of information.

Furthermore, there are two types of information generated by the above digital processing: reflected light and transmitted light, and by performing discrimination based on the combination of these two types of information, it is possible to identify grains with peeling, immature grains, and damaged grains, which are the basis for determining the grade of rice. It is possible to improve the accuracy when identifying grains, North American grains, colored grains, foreign substances, etc., and determining their ratios.

Furthermore, based on the results of the discrimination, the sorting device installed in the separate vibrating grain feeding trough performs more accurate sorting as the discrimination accuracy improves.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, the arithmetic unit, which can be called the heart of the rice grain quality discriminating device, doubles the multiple pieces of information through digital processing with two types of information through reflection and transmission. This is much more accurate than determination based on a single piece of data, and it becomes possible to quickly and accurately determine grades in place of inspections by rice inspectors.

[Example] The configuration of this example will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3 and FIG. 7.

Reference numeral 1 indicates a rice grain quality discriminating device of the present invention.

A sample supply hopper 21 supported by the support frame 11 and a valve 22 for discharging the sample in appropriate amounts are provided below the hopper at the upper left end of the machine frame 10, and a pulley 24 mounted on the rotation shaft 23 of the valve The valve 22 is rotated by the drive motor 25 and is connected to the valve unit together with the supply hopper 21 by a pulley 27 mounted on a rotating shaft 26 of a drive motor 25 supported by the drive motor 25 and a timing belt 28 wrapped around the pulley. Form 20. Further, a scattering prevention cover 29 is provided so as to surround the outer periphery of the pulp 22 from the lower part of the supply hopper 21 inside the valve unit 20. The valve 22 is provided with grooves 3 at arbitrary intervals in the direction of the rotation axis on the circumference of the valve so as to intermittently release the sample.
form 0.

The sample released from the valve unit 20 is placed in the machine frame 1.
A vibrating grain feeding gutter (hereinafter referred to as "feeding feeder J") 40 formed with a plurality of grain feeding grooves 41 provided on the top of the feeder J has a slope that flows toward the supply side and is connected to the discharge side of the feeding feeder 40 in a related manner. A gutter 50 is provided on the machine frame 10, and the samples flow down the inclined gutter 50 in an aligned manner.At this time, the upper surface of the inclined FA 50 has a width relatively larger than the width of each of the grain feeding grooves 41 on the feeder 40. The same number of flowing grooves 51 as the grain feeding grooves 41 are provided.The sample passing through the slope 150 is transferred to a separate vibrating grain feeding gutter ( Below is "sorting feeder"
) 60. Low-grade grains, such as grains with loose skin, cracked grains, colored grains, etc., are placed at arbitrary positions on the sorting feeder 60.
A sorting device 80 for sorting North America and the like is placed idle.

The sample flowing through the sorting feeder 60 is discharged to the outside of the machine from an outlet 86 on the discharge side of the sorting feeder 60. Further, among the samples, the low-quality samples are selected by the sorting device 80.
It passes through a conveyance pipe 83 and is discharged to the outside of the machine from a discharge port 87 different from the discharge side of the feeder 60.

The sending feeder 40 and the sorting feeder 60 each have a vibration-proof rubber 42.62 interposed therebetween, and have their respective base portions 43.63.
The feeding feeder 40 and the sorting feeder 60 have a stepped portion 45 that is fixed to the machine frame 1o and tilts forward in the direction of movement.
．． 65 is formed at one or several locations. (FIG. 2) A reflected light amount measuring section 90 is provided above the inclined gutter 50, and a transmitted light amount measuring section 100 is provided below. The reflected light amount measurement unit 90 includes a light source 91 that irradiates the sample from above the inclined gutter surface 52, a cover 93 with a slit 92 surrounding the upper outer periphery of the light source, and a light source that passes through the center of the slit 92 with respect to the inclined surface 52. It is constituted by a downward reflected light amount detection lens barrel 95 containing a condensing lens 94 fixed on an arbitrary extension on a perpendicular line.

The transmitted light quantity measurement unit 100 is installed in a slit 51 which is formed by joining the end faces of two inclined troughs with a spacer interposed in the flow groove below the inclination 150.
A lens barrel for downward transmission detection that incorporates a light source 101 that irradiates the sample from below and a condensing lens 102 that is fixed on an arbitrary extension above the inclined gutter surface 52 that can measure the light source 101 that has passed through the slit 51. 103.

The reflected light amount measuring section 90, the transmitted light amount measuring section 100, and the inclined gutter 50 form a sensor part 120. Here, the lens barrel 95.103 has light amount detection elements 96, 106, and the lens barrel 95.103 has the same number of light flow grooves 51 of the inclined gutter 50, or the same number of light flow grooves 51 as the flow grooves 51 of the inclined gutter 50. It is also possible to provide one for every plurality of detection elements 96 and 106.

Next, the sorting device 80 will be described in detail (see FIG. 3).

The sorting device 80 has a suction port 82 of a suction tube 81 facing each groove of the sorting feeder 60. The suction pipe 81 is provided so as to hang down perpendicularly to the conveying surface of the sorting feeder 60. The upper end of each suction tube 81 is connected to a conveying tube 83 that is horizontally suspended, and both the suction tube 81 and the conveying tube 83 have an inner diameter that allows rice grains to pass through. Further, one end of each conveying pipe 83 is connected to an air compressor (not shown), and the other end faces into a rice grain receiving box placed in an appropriate space inside and outside the machine frame 10. A solenoid valve 184 is interposed in each conveyance pipe 83 closer to the air compressor than the suction pipe 81, and each solenoid valve 84 is configured to be operated by an output signal from the arithmetic and control device 113. In addition, compressed air blown by the operation of a solenoid valve 84 is supplied to each conveying pipe 83 by providing a nozzle part 85 just before the suction pipe 81 is attached to an ejector.
r). As a result, when the arithmetic and control unit 113 analyzes the measured value of the sensor part 120 and determines that a certain rice grain is a low-grade grain, the solenoid valve 84 is actuated by a signal from the arithmetic and control unit 113, and compressed air is supplied to the nozzle. It passes through section 85. At this time, the pressure inside the suction tube 81 becomes low, and the rice grains are sucked through the suction port 82 and conveyed to the rice grain receiving box through the conveyance tube 83. In addition, the sorting feeder 6
It is preferable to provide a large number of ventilation holes 51 at the bottom of each groove of 0 to suck air from below the groove, thereby preventing rice grains other than split grains from being sucked in.

Next, the control configuration will be explained with reference to FIG.

The reflected light amount measurement section 90 and the transmitted light amount measurement section 100 are connected to an arithmetic and control unit 113 via an A/D conversion 111 and a differentiation circuit 112, respectively. The arithmetic and control unit 113 and A/D
The calculation control section 11 is operated by the conversion 111 and the differentiation circuit 112.
Achieve 0.

Further, the sorting device 80, the drive motor 25 of the supply valve 22, the feeder 40, and the sorting feeder 60 are connected to the arithmetic and control device 113.

The operation of the above configuration will be explained. Supply hopper 21
A sample is introduced into the feeder, and the valve 22, feeder 40, and sorting feeder 60 are activated by the arithmetic and control unit 113.

The sample rice grains are sent to the feeder 40 by the rotation of the valve 22.
The feeder 40 feeds the sensor unit 1
It flows to 20. Next, the rice grain is placed on the slope 1 of the sensor part 120.
50, add the rice grains in the longitudinal direction. At this time, each slit 5 of the reflected light amount measuring section 90 and the transmitted light amount measuring section 100
A rice grain passes through 1.92 in the longitudinal direction. The time required at this time is assumed to be 1 Qms. Reflected and transmitted light amount measuring section 90
, 100 starts measurement, and each light amount measuring section measures the light amount of the slit 51.92 provided in each light amount measuring section in a predetermined order. The slits 51.
The time required to measure the amount of light in Step 2 is 0.5ms.
shall be. In other words, one grain of rice equals one slit 51.92
Each light amount measuring section can obtain measurement signals 20 times during the 10 m5 time the light passes through. These 20 measurement signals are used as a measurement signal for one rice grain, which is significantly different from known rice grain quality discriminating devices.

Each light amount measurement unit digitally processes the transmitted light amount signal obtained from one slit out of the 20 measurement signals obtained from each slit, that is, the measurement signal obtained by measuring the transmitted light amount of one rice grain 20 times, and plots it on the horizontal axis. When the signal level V of the measurement signal is plotted on the vertical axis of time t1, it becomes as shown in FIG. 5.

The time T is obtained from the longitudinal direction of the rice grains and the flow rate, and is 1Qms according to the above.

The V at 1 in the figure indicates that the distance between transmitted light is reduced in that portion, but it is impossible to determine from this alone whether this is due to skin misalignment, body splitting, or coloring. Here, the signals from the reflected light amount measuring unit obtained simultaneously from the same rice grain are illustrated as shown in FIG. 6 (2). In the figure, V at 1 o'clock indicates that the amount of reflected light increases only in that part, so it can be understood that the surface of the rice grain in that part appears whiter than the surface of other rice grains. It can be determined that these rice grains are grains with skin deviation. Also, if the signal from the same reflected light measurement unit is shown in Figure 6 (■), it can be understood that at the 1 o'clock part in the figure, the amount of reflected light has decreased by v, the same as the signal from the transmitted light amount measurement unit, and the transmitted light In combination with Figure 5 in between, it can be determined that this rice grain is a colored grain.

As described above, while one rice grain passes through the slit, the signals obtained by the reflected light amount measurement signal and the transmitted light amount measurement signal are each digitally processed, their waveforms are analyzed, and the rice grains are determined based on the combination of the two light amount measurement signals. It becomes easy and accurate to judge the quality of the product.

FIG. 6 shows an example of the measurement signals of the amount of reflected and transmitted light when (1) regular grains, (2) skin-displaced grains, (2) split grains, and (2) colored grains pass through the grains. Here, since the timing of measuring the amount of reflected light and the amount of transmitted light is delayed by the difference in the position of the slit for each, a delay circuit is provided to compensate for this.

The signal obtained by the light amount measurement is processed by the arithmetic and control unit 113 as described above, and the quality of the rice grains is determined.

Next, when the rice grains determined to be low quality based on this result pass under the sorting device 80, the order and average passing time of the rice grains are stored, so that the corresponding rice grains are accurately selected by the arithmetic and control device 113. The low-grade rice grains are sucked into the suction port 82 by the operation of the solenoid valve 84 in response to a signal from the rice grain receiving box, and are transported to the rice grain receiving box through the transport pipe 83.

The rice grain quality discriminating device with the above structure and operation can set many criteria for discrimination by incorporating a large amount of data for discriminating the quality of rice grains.
The method of discriminating by taking in one signal from a rice grain greatly improves the accuracy of the discrimination.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a configuration diagram of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a side view of the feeding and sorting feeder, Fig. 3 is a perspective partial view of the sorting device, Fig. 4 is a block diagram, and Fig. 5 is a transmitted light waveform analysis diagram. , FIG. 6 is a pattern diagram based on a combination of reflected light and transmitted light, FIG. 7 is a sectional view taken along line A-A of the feeding and sorting feeder, and FIG. 8 is a frequency distribution diagram. 1...Rice grain quality discrimination device, 10...Machine frame, 11...
- Support frame, 21... Supply hopper, 22... Valve, 23.26... Rotating shaft, 24.27... Pulley 25... Drive motor, 28... Timing belt,
29...Scatter prevention cover 30...Groove, 40...
Sending feeder, 41.61... Grain feeding groove, 42,6
2... Vibration-proof rubber part, 43.63... Base, 45,6
5... Level difference, 50... Inclined gutter, 51... Ventilation hole,
52... Incline 1, 60... Sorting feeder, 80
... sorting device, 81 ... suction pipe, 82 ... suction port, 83 ... conveyance pipe, 84 ... solenoid valve, 85 ... nozzle part, 86° 87 ... discharge port, 90...Reflected light amount measuring unit, 91°101...Light source, 92...Slit, 93...Cover 94.102...Condensing lens, 9
5,103...Lens barrel, 96.106...Light amount detection element, 100...Transmitted light amount measuring section, 110...Arithmetic control section, 111...A/D conversion, 112...Differentiation , 113... Arithmetic control unit, 120... Sensor part.

Claims (4)

[Claims] (1) A vibrating grain feeding gutter equipped with grain feeding grooves that flow rice grains in a longitudinal manner is installed horizontally, a rice grain supply section is provided on the supply side of the vibratory grain feeding gutter, and a rice grain feeding section is provided on the discharge side of the vibrating grain feeding gutter. a reflected light amount measuring unit that connects inclined gutters in a tilted manner, and measures the amount of reflected light by irradiating rice grains at the front and back positions above the inclined gutters with a light source from above the inclined gutters; and a transmitted light amount measurement section that measures the amount of transmitted light transmitted through the rice grains through a slit in the bottom of the inclined gutter using a light source provided in the bottom of the sloping gutter, and a calculation that processes the measured values of the reflected light amount measurement section and the transmitted light amount measurement section and discriminates them into multiple grades. A rice grain quality discriminating device characterized by comprising a control section. (2) A vibrating grain feeding gutter equipped with grain feeding grooves that flow rice grains in a longitudinal manner is installed horizontally, a rice grain supply section is provided on the supply side of the vibratory grain feeding gutter, and a rice grain feeding section is provided on the discharge side of the vibrating grain feeding gutter. A vibrating grain feeding gutter separate from the vibrating grain feeding gutter is horizontally connected to the discharge side of the inclined gutter, and a vibrating grain feeding gutter separate from the vibrating grain feeding gutter is horizontally connected to the draining gutter. There is a reflected light measuring section that illuminates rice grains from above the inclined gutter with a light source and measures the amount of reflected light, and a transmission section that measures the amount of transmitted light transmitted through the rice grains through the slit in the bottom of the inclined gutter using a light source provided below the inclined gutter. The calculation is applied to the separate vibrating grain feeding gutter of the rice grain quality discriminating device, which includes a light amount measurement unit and a calculation unit that performs arithmetic processing on the measured values of the reflected light amount measurement unit and the transmitted light amount measurement unit and discriminates the rice grains into a plurality of grades. A rice grain quality discriminating device characterized by comprising a sorting device that performs sorting based on the discrimination results obtained by discriminating multiple grades of rice grains. (3) The measured values of the reflected light amount measuring section and the transmitted light amount measuring section that have changed over time are each digitally processed, and a plurality of rice grain grades are discriminated based on a combination of the respective digitally processed values. 1) or (2)
The rice grain quality determination device described. (4) A step is provided on the bottom surface of the grain feeding groove provided in the vibrating grain feed gutter and a separate vibrating grain feed gutter, so that it slopes forward in the direction of movement, and the bottom surface becomes lower with each step in the direction of movement. The rice grain quality discriminating device according to claim 1, wherein the rice grain quality discriminating device is formed as follows.