JPH11258183A - Inspection apparatus for seal part - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain an inspection apparatus by which the seal part of a packaging bag can be inspected stably and with high precision. SOLUTION: An inspection apparatus inspects the seal part 1a of a retort pack 1 which is sealed so as to house its contents in a sealed-up state. The inspection apparatus is provided with a suction panel 9 which sucks the rear surface of the seal part 1a of the retort pack 1 and which corrects the seal part 1 to be a flat shape, with a first pressure member 12 which presses the seal part 1a of the retort pack 1 from its surface and which is brought into contact with the suction panel 9 so as to be then retreated, with a camera 19 which photographs the surface of the seal part 1a sucked by the suction panel 9 and with a control device 20 which judges the existence of a flaw in the seal part 1a on the basis of a photographed image which is photographed after the first pressure member 12 is retreated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a seal inspection apparatus for inspecting a seal of a packaging bag such as a retort pack.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A packaging bag such as a retort pack is manufactured by filling contents such as food and medicine from a storage opening, and then heat-sealing the storage opening to seal the contents.
At this time, if there is a defect in the seal portion such as biting of the contents into the seal portion heat sealed the storage port or wrinkles of the seal portion, the airtightness of the pack is not maintained or the appearance is poor, The product value is significantly reduced.

[0003] For this reason, by photographing a seal portion of a packaging bag with a camera while illuminating the seal portion, and performing image processing on a two-dimensional image composed of a bright and dark image of the seal portion obtained by the camera, the presence or absence of a defect in the seal portion can be easily inspected. The development of a seal part inspection device to be performed. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-229856, a camera and a light source are arranged on the front side and the back side of the pack, respectively, and light is emitted from the light source to the back side of the seal section of the pack and transmitted therethrough. There is disclosed a method for inspecting a defect in a seal portion by causing an image to appear and photographing a bright and dark image of the seal portion with a camera.

[0004]

However, in the above-described conventional method of transmitting light through the seal portion to produce a bright and dark image, the seal portion needs to be formed of a transparent or translucent material that transmits light. Therefore, there is a problem that the method cannot be applied to an opaque retort pack that occupies most of the inspection target.

[0005] In view of this, a method of inspecting a defect in the seal portion by irradiating light to the surface of the seal portion and causing a bright and dark image to appear by reflected light is considered. However, in this case, since the shape of the packaging bag is easily changed only by bonding two films, the packaging bag is photographed (inspection).
Each time, the irradiation angle of the light to the seal portion changes, and the condition for producing a bright and dark image varies, which causes a problem that a stable inspection is difficult. In addition, the problem that the conditions under which a bright and dark image appears varies from inspection to inspection, similarly occurs because the shape of a packaging bag made of a transparent or translucent material is easily changed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an inspection apparatus capable of stably and accurately inspecting a sealing portion of a packaging bag.

[0007]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a first aspect of the present invention is a seal portion inspection apparatus for inspecting a seal portion of a packaging bag which is sealed so as to house contents in a sealed state. The suction panel means for adsorbing the other surface of the sealing portion of the packaging bag and correcting the sealing portion to be flat, and the sealing portion of the packaging bag pressed from one surface to contact the suction panel means. A first pressing means for retracting later, a photographing means for photographing one surface of the seal portion sucked by the suction panel means, and a photographed image of the photographing means photographed after the first pressing means retreats based on the photographed image of the photographing means. And a defect judging means for judging the presence or absence of a defect in the seal portion.

According to the above configuration, when the packaging bag before inspection is transported and set on the suction panel means by the transporting device or the operator, the packaging bag is formed of a soft material or a large amount of contents are removed. If it is contained, the sealing portion may be largely separated from the suction panel means due to deformation of the packaging bag or the like, so that the suction panel means may not be able to suction all or a part of the sealing portion. However,
Even in this case, since the first pressing means presses the sealing portion of the packaging bag from one side to abut against the suction panel means, the entire sealing portion is always sucked by the suction panel means regardless of the form of the packaging bag. Can be. Thereby, even when the packaging bag is deformed due to vibration or impact or contains a large amount of contents during transportation or positioning to the suction panel means, the seal portion is reliably sucked to the suction panel means. Since the flat portion can be corrected, the seal portion can be photographed and inspected under stable and constant inspection conditions.

Further, since the first pressing means for pressing the seal portion is retracted after the seal portion is attracted to the suction panel means, the photographing means directly photographs the seal portion. Therefore, for example, in the case where the photographing is performed while the seal portion is continuously pressed by the transparent first pressing unit, when dust or dirt adheres to the first pressing unit, the accuracy of the inspection is reduced as noise of the captured image. However, if the image is taken directly as in the present invention, such a problem does not occur.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided the seal inspection apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein the second pressing means presses the contents of the packaging bag so as to pressurize after the first pressing means is retracted.
It is characterized by having a pressing means.

According to the above arrangement, when the content of the packaging bag is pressurized by the second pressing means, when the sealing force is weak or a serious unsealed floating is generated in the sealing portion, the sealing portion is moved from the sealing portion. The contents can be leaked. Thus, by photographing the leaked contents, it is possible to reliably inspect even a defect that does not clearly appear on the seal portion itself.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 1, the inspection device according to the present embodiment transports a table table 6 having a flat upper surface and the retort pack 1 in a transport direction (arrow direction) along the upper surface of the table table 6. And a transfer device 7. The transport device 7 includes a transport belt 2 on which the retort pack 1 is placed and transported, and a belt drive motor 8 shown in FIG. 2 for driving the transport belt 2 so as to be temporarily stopped. On the mounting surface (front surface) of the conveyor belt 2, a partition member 3
Are provided at equal intervals in the longitudinal direction, and one retort pack 1 is placed between adjacent partition members 3. Further, the belt width of the transport belt 2 is set to be narrower than that of the retort pack 1 so that the seal portion 1 a of the retort pack 1 is located outside the transport belt 2.

The retort pack 1 is a package in which contents such as cooked foods are sealed between two films by heat sealing the periphery of two films cut into a predetermined shape such as a rectangular shape. A heat-sealed seal portion 1a, and a housing portion 1 surrounded by the seal portion 1a.
b.

A pair of guide members 4a and 4b are provided at both ends of the table 6 along the conveyor belt 2. The distance between the guide members 4a and 4b is set to a distance substantially equal to the length of the retort pack 1, and by contacting the upper and lower ends of the retort pack 1, the retort pack 1 is positioned in the belt width direction. It has become.

At the inspection position A of the table 6, a suction device 5 is provided. The suction device 5 is arranged at a position corresponding to the seal portion 1 a of the retort pack 1, and is set to be flush with the upper surface of the table base 6.
have. A large number of suction holes 9a are formed in the suction panel 9, and the suction holes 9a are connected to the vacuum pump 10 of FIG. 2 via a vacuum pipe (not shown). Then, the suction device 5 sucks air from the suction hole 9a of the vacuum pump 10 to bring the lower surface of the seal portion 1a of the retort pack 1 into close contact with the suction panel 9 to flatten the seal portion 1a. I have.

Above the suction panel 9, a seal suction assisting device 11 for forcibly bringing the seal portion 1a into contact with the suction panel 9 is provided. The sealing portion suction assisting device 11 includes a first pressing member 1 disposed opposite to the suction panel 9.
2 and a first elevating mechanism 13 such as an air cylinder capable of elevating the first pressing member 12 in the suction panel 9 direction.
Further, a storage unit pressing device 14 that presses the contents stored in the retort pack 1 is provided on the side of the sealing unit suction assist device 11. The accommodation unit pressing device 14 includes a second pressing member 15 disposed to face the conveyor belt 2 so as to press the storage unit 1 b of the retort pack 1, and an air cylinder capable of moving the second pressing member 15 up and down in the direction of the suction panel 9. And the like.

A linear light source 17 is provided diagonally above the suction panel 9 in the belt width direction. Linear light source 1
7 has an emission surface 17a for emitting light linearly,
The emission surface 17a is arranged parallel to the suction panel 9. Thus, the linear light source 17 uniformly illuminates the entire upper surface of the seal portion 1a of the retort pack 1 sucked by the suction panel 9, so that a bright and dark image appears on the seal portion 1a. On the other hand, a point-like light source 18 that emits light in a point-like manner is provided obliquely above the suction panel 9 in the transport direction.
Light orthogonal to the direction of light irradiation by the
, A bright and dark image appears on the seal portion 1a.

Further, a camera 19 for photographing the sealing portion 1a of the retort pack 1 is provided above the suction panel 9. The camera 19 is provided at a position where the retracted first pressing member 12 does not interfere with photographing so that the entirety of the seal portion 1a is included in the field of view. The camera 3 receives the light and dark image of the seal portion 1a by the light receiving element array to obtain a two-dimensional photographed image, digitizes the photographed image, and stores the digitized image in the buffer memory until the next update cycle. When a command is received from the control device 20 in FIG. 2, it is output as captured image data. The digitization of the captured image may be performed by the control device 20.

As shown in FIG. 2, the control device 20 includes an I / O unit 21 connected to each device such as a camera 19 constituting an inspection device, and a memory unit 22 storing various data and programs. And a CPU section 23 for executing a program stored in the memory section 22 and a data bus 24 for interconnecting the sections 21 to 22. Memory part 2
Numeral 2 is composed of a RAM and a ROM. The RAM stores a photographed image data area 22a and a differential data area 22a.
b, various data areas such as the binarized data area 22c are formed. On the other hand, the ROM stores programs such as an inspection control routine shown in FIG. 4 and a defect determination processing routine shown in FIG. 5. The inspection control routine and the defect determination processing routine control each device of the inspection apparatus and a camera. By processing the photographed image data from the retort pack 19, as shown in FIG.
The defect a is inspected.

In the above configuration, the operation of the inspection apparatus will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 4 and 5 and the timing chart of FIG. As shown in FIG.
When the U unit 23 executes the inspection control routine, the belt drive motor 8 is operated to move the transport belt 2 in the transport direction as shown in FIG. Thus, when the retort pack 1 before inspection is placed on the transport belt 2 at the placement position B on the upstream side in the transport direction, the retort pack 1 moves in the transport direction together with the transport belt 2 (S1). ).

Next, it is determined whether or not the retort pack 1 has reached the inspection position A by a detection sensor (not shown) provided at the inspection position A (S2). If it is determined that it has not reached the inspection position A (S2, NO), the retort pack 1 by the transport belt 2 is determined while determining whether or not it has arrived.
Continue to transport. On the other hand, if it is determined that the inspection position A has been reached (S2, YES), the conveyance of the retort pack 1 by the conveyance belt 2 is stopped to position the seal portion 1a of the retort pack 1 above the suction panel 9. (S3).

Next, the vacuum pump 10 shown in FIG.
Air is sucked through the suction holes 9a of the suction panel 9. At this time, the sealing portion 1a of the retort pack 1 is
Is sufficiently close to the suction panel 9a, a negative pressure is generated around the suction hole 9a by the suction of the air, so that the seal portion 1a is drawn to the suction hole 9a and closely adheres to the suction panel 9. On the other hand, the storage portion 1b of the retort pack 1 has a large thickness,
When the retort pack 1 is placed in a deformed state, the seal portion 1 a of the retort pack 1 is attached to the suction panel 9.
In the case where the seal portion 1a is largely separated from the suction panel 9, the state in which all or a part of the seal portion 1a is separated from the suction panel 9 is maintained because the force for pulling the seal portion 1a is insufficient.
4).

Next, the first pressing member 12 is moved down by operating the first lifting / lowering mechanism 13 of the seal suction assisting device 11. The first pressing member 12 comes into contact with the upper surface of the seal portion 1a by descending, and urges the seal portion 1a downward (toward the suction panel 9). Thereby, the sealing portion 1
a is separated from the suction panel 9, the seal portion 1 a moves toward the lower suction panel 9, and the seal portion 1 a
Is pressed against and adhered to the suction panel 9. Also, due to the deformation of the retort pack 1, the sealing portion 1
Even when a portion of the seal portion 1a is separated from the suction panel 9, the separated portion is pressed against the suction panel 9 by the first pressing member 12, so that the entire lower surface of the seal portion 1a is suctioned as shown in FIG. It comes into close contact with the panel 9 (S5).

Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 1, by raising the first pressing member 12, the pressing of the seal portion 1a is released, and the first pressing member 12 is moved to a position where the photographing of the camera 19 is not hindered. It is evacuated (S6). Subsequently, the second pressing member 15 is moved down by operating the second lifting / lowering mechanism 16 of the housing unit pressing device 14, and the second
The container 1b of the retort pack 1 is pressed by the pressing member 15 to press the contents of the container 1b. Thereby, in the case where the seal is inadequate or a significant unsealed lift defect occurs in the seal portion 1a,
Since the pressing of the seal portion 1a by the first pressing member 12 has been released, the contents leak from the seal portion 1a (S7).

When the preparation for detection is completed as described above, next, a defect determination process for determining whether or not a defect has occurred in the seal portion 1a is performed (S8). That is, by executing the defect determination processing routine of FIG.
The light source 7 and the point light source 18 are turned on, and light is applied to the upper surface of the seal portion 1a of the retort pack 1 from each direction obliquely upward. At this time, since the seal portion 1a is sucked by the suction panel 9 and flattened, the light is irradiated on the seal portion 1a at a fixed irradiation angle. Therefore,
A bright and dark image illuminated under constant inspection conditions always appears on the seal portion 1a. Incidentally, one of the linear light source 17 and the point light source 18 may be turned on according to the type of the retort pack 1 (S11).

When a bright and dark image appears in the illumination area centered on the seal 1a as described above, the seal 1
Captured image data is captured from the camera 19 that has captured a bright and dark image around the area a as a two-dimensional image, and stored in the captured image data area 22 a of the memory unit 22. At this time, since the first pressing member 12 is retracted to a position where it does not hinder the photographing of the camera 19, the camera 19 directly photographs the periphery of the seal portion 1a. As a result, a clearer and darker image is photographed than when photographing while pressing the seal portion 1a with a transparent member such as glass, for example, so that noise included in the captured image data captured is reduced. (S12).

Thereafter, the linear light source 17 and the point light source 18
Is turned off (S13), the differential processing is performed on the photographed image data stored in the photographed image data area 22a to obtain differential data corresponding to the amount of change in light and shade in the photographed image data. Make it stand out. That is, for example, if a wrinkle defect occurs in the seal portion 1a, the wrinkle portion is relatively bright, and the normal portion is a relatively dark and dark image, so that the contour portion of the wrinkle generation region is large. Numerical differential data. Then, after storing such differential data in the differential data area 22b (S1
4) By binarizing the differential data with a predetermined threshold value, the contour portion of the seal portion 1a or the defective region is converted into binary data having data contents different from those of the other portions. (S15).

Next, based on the binarized data, the sealing portion 1
After the position of the seal portion 1a is specified by obtaining the outline of a, the defect region is extracted based on the outline existing inside the seal portion 1a. Then, the total area of the defect area is determined, and if the total area exceeds the determination value, the sealing portion 1 is determined.
It is determined that a defect has occurred to the extent that a becomes a defective product. Further, it is checked whether or not the outline of the content exists outside the seal portion 1a.
It is determined that a floating defect in which contents leak from the seal portion 1a has occurred (S16). Thereafter, the determination result is displayed on a display device (not shown) to notify the operator, and is stored in the memory unit 22 as data for instructing whether to remove the retort pack 1 in a later process (S1).
7).

When the defect determination processing is completed as described above, the process returns to the inspection control routine of FIG. 4, and the second pressing member 15 is raised to release the pressing of the contents (S9).
Then, the vacuum pump 10 of FIG. 2 is stopped, and air is blown into the suction holes 9a of the suction panel 9 to make the pressure equal to or higher than the atmospheric pressure.
Is released (S10). Thereafter, by executing the above-described S1, the transport belt 2 is moved in the transport direction, the inspected retort pack 1 is moved to the unloading position C, and the retort pack 1 before inspection is moved to the inspection position A. .

Although the present invention has been described based on the preferred embodiments, the present invention can be modified without departing from the spirit thereof. For example, in this embodiment,
The case where the retort pack 1 in which cooked food is stored in a sealed state is described, but the present invention is not limited to this, and liquids, powders, solids, etc. other than food are sealed and stored. It can be applied to inspection of packaging bags. Further, in the present embodiment, the lower surface of the seal portion 1a is suctioned to photograph the upper surface. However, the lower surface of the seal portion 1a may be photographed by suctioning the upper surface.

That is, the seal inspection apparatus of the present embodiment
This is to inspect the sealing portion of the packaging bag (retort pack 1) sealed so as to store the contents in a sealed state. The other surface (lower surface) of the sealing portion of the packaging bag is sucked, and the sealing portion is flat. And a first pressing means (first pressing member 12) which presses the sealing portion of the packaging bag from one side (upper surface) to make contact with the suction panel means and then retracts. And photographing means (camera 19) for photographing one surface of the seal portion sucked by the suction panel means.
And a defect judging means (control device 20) for judging the presence or absence of a defect in the seal portion based on a photographed image of the photographing means taken after the first pressing means has retreated. . And if this structure is provided, the seal portion is surely adsorbed to the adsorbing panel means and corrected to a flat shape,
The seal portion can be photographed and inspected under stable inspection conditions, and even if dust or dirt adheres to the first pressing means, noise does not occur in the photographed image. it can.

Further, the seal portion inspection apparatus presses the contents of the packaging bag so as to pressurize the contents after the first pressing means (first pressing member 12) is retracted (second pressing member 15). Is desirable. According to this configuration, even if a floating defect that does not clearly appear in the seal portion itself occurs, the inspection can be reliably performed based on the leaked contents.

[0033]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a seal inspection apparatus for inspecting a seal portion of a packaging bag which is sealed so as to store contents therein in a sealed state, wherein the other surface of the sealing portion of the packaging bag is sucked. Suction panel means for correcting the seal portion to a flat shape, first pressing means for pressing the seal portion of the packaging bag from one surface to make contact with the suction panel means, and then retracting, and the suction panel. A photographing means for photographing one surface of the seal portion adsorbed by the means, and a defect for judging the presence or absence of a defect in the seal portion based on a photographed image of the photographing means photographed after the first pressing means retreats. And a determination unit.

According to the above configuration, when the packaging bag before inspection is transported and set on the suction panel means by the transport device or the operator, the packaging bag is formed of a soft material, or a large amount of contents are removed. If it is contained, the sealing portion may be largely separated from the suction panel means due to deformation of the packaging bag or the like, so that the suction panel means may not be able to suction all or a part of the sealing portion. However,
Even in this case, since the first pressing means presses the sealing portion of the packaging bag from one side to abut against the suction panel means, the entire sealing portion is always sucked by the suction panel means regardless of the form of the packaging bag. Can be. Thereby, even when the packaging bag is deformed due to vibration or impact or contains a large amount of contents during transportation or positioning to the suction panel means, the seal portion is reliably sucked to the suction panel means. Since the flat portion can be corrected, the seal portion can be photographed and inspected under stable inspection conditions.

Further, since the first pressing means for pressing the seal portion is retracted after sucking the seal portion on the suction panel means, the photographing means directly photographs the seal portion. Therefore, for example, in the case of taking an image while pressing the seal portion with the transparent first pressing means, if dust or dirt adheres to the first pressing means, a problem occurs that the accuracy of the inspection is reduced as noise of the captured image. However, there is an effect that such inconvenience does not occur if the image is taken directly as in the present invention.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided the seal inspection apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein the second pressing means presses the contents of the packaging bag to pressurize after the first pressing means is retracted.
This is a configuration having a pressing means.

According to the above configuration, when the contents of the packaging bag are pressurized by the second pressing means, when the sealing force is weak or a significant unsealed floating is generated in the sealing portion, the sealing portion is moved from the sealing portion. The contents can be leaked. Thus, by photographing the leaked contents, it is possible to reliably inspect even a defect that does not clearly appear on the seal portion itself.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a main part of a seal inspection apparatus.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the seal inspection apparatus.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a state in which a seal portion of a retort pack is sucked on a suction panel.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an inspection control routine.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a defect determination processing routine.

FIG. 6 is a timing chart showing the operation of the seal inspection apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Retort pack 1a Seal part 1b accommodation part 2 Conveyor belt 3 Partition member 5 Suction device 6 Table table 7 Conveyor device 8 Belt drive motor 9 Suction panel 9a Suction hole 10 Vacuum pump 11 Seal part suction assist device 12 First pressing member 13th Reference Signs List 1 elevating mechanism 14 accommodation unit pressing device 15 second pressing member 16 second elevating mechanism 17 linear light source 18 point light source 19 camera 20 control device

Continuing from the front page (72) Inventor Shizuo Maeda 1-1-2 Nakahara, Sanya-cho, Toyohashi-shi, Aichi Prefecture Inside the Kobe Steel Toyohashi FA / Robot Center (72) Inventor Takumi Mizokawa Character of Sanya-cho, Toyohashi-shi, Aichi Prefecture Nakahara 1-2, Kobe Steel Ltd. Toyohashi FA / Robot Center

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A sealing portion inspection apparatus for inspecting a sealing portion of a packaging bag sealed so as to house contents therein in a sealed state, wherein the other surface of the sealing portion of the packaging bag is sucked and the sealing portion is flattened. Suction panel means for correcting the shape of the packaging bag, first pressing means for pressing the sealing portion of the packaging bag from one side to make contact with the suction panel means, and retracting, and a sealing portion sucked by the suction panel means Photographing means for photographing one surface of the seal means, and defect determining means for judging the presence or absence of a defect in the seal portion based on a photographed image of the photographing means photographed after the first pressing means retreats. A seal part inspection device characterized by the above-mentioned. 2. The seal portion inspection apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a second pressing unit that presses the contents of the packaging bag so as to press the contents after the first pressing unit retracts.