JPH09133630A - Device for discriminating bad unpolished rice from good unpolished rice - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To discriminate bad unpolished rice from good unpolished rice. SOLUTION: When the light emitting section of a grain discriminating sensor 1 projects near infrared rays containing rays of a wavelength region which is absorbed by moisture upon unpolished rice, only those of the wavelength region which is absorbed by moisture of the reflected light from the rice are transmitted to an infrared detecting element through an optical filter section and converted into a voltage. Since the magnitude of the voltage varies depending upon the quantity of the transmitted light, bad unpolished rice 8 can be discriminated from good unpolished rice 5 based on the detected voltage value. Therefore, bad unpolished rice 8 can be discriminated accurately from good unpolished rice 5 regardless of the surface color of the rice.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus for discriminating between refined brown rice and defective rice using near infrared light.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The applicant of the present invention has found that a light-emitting portion for irradiating near-infrared light including a wavelength range absorbed by water, and light reflected or transmitted through the grain of the near-infrared light is absorbed by water. Optical filter section that passes only the wavelength band that passes through it, an infrared detection element section that converts the voltage to a large or small voltage depending on the degree of the wavelength range that has passed through the optical filter section, and paddy / brown rice depending on the magnitude of the converted voltage of the infrared detection element section. Patent application for a paddy / brown rice discrimination sensor consisting of a paddy / brown rice discriminating unit (Patent application 6
-222859).

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is based on the above
By partially changing the brown rice discrimination sensor, while trying to prevent erroneous detection based on the color of the grain surface, try to accurately discriminate brown rice between fine brown rice and defective rice (paddy, dead rice, colored rice, damaged rice) To do.

[0004]

Means for Solving the Problems The technical means of the present invention is to provide a light emitting section for irradiating near-infrared light including a wavelength range absorbed by moisture, and reflected light or transmitted light of the kernel of the near-infrared light. A grain discrimination sensor including an optical filter section that allows only a wavelength range absorbed by water to pass therethrough and an infrared detection element section that converts the near-infrared light that has passed through the optical filter section into a large and small voltage depending on the amount of the near-infrared light. 1 and refined brown rice that irradiates the brown rice with the near-infrared light from the light emitting part of the grain discrimination sensor 1 and discriminates between refined brown rice and defective brown rice based on the magnitude of the voltage value converted from the reflected light or the transmitted light. This is a configuration of a device for discriminating between refined brown rice and defective rice, which comprises defective rice discriminating means.

[0005]

[Operation] Near-infrared light including a wavelength range absorbed by water is irradiated from a light emitting portion of the grain discrimination sensor 1 to one grain of brown rice or a plurality of brown rice. Then, only the wavelength light absorbed by moisture in the reflected light from the brown rice passes through the optical filter unit, and is converted into a large or small voltage according to the amount of the wavelength light in the infrared detection element unit, and the detected voltage value. Based on a predetermined threshold value, is discriminated between refined brown rice and bad brown rice.

[0006]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS First, the embodiments shown in the drawings will be described.
The present invention relates to a device for discriminating between refined brown rice (fine grained rice) and defective rice such as paddy, dead rice, colored rice, and damaged rice based on the difference in water content on the surface of brown rice. The grain discrimination sensor 1 is
As shown in FIG. 1 (1), the configuration is as follows.

Near-infrared light in a wavelength range absorbed by water from a light emitting portion (tungsten lamp) and other reference wavelength light are irradiated to the grain, and reflected light from the grain is filtered by an optical filter portion (filtration for water absorption). Only the wavelength range that is received by the filter) and absorbed by water passes through the optical filter section and is sent to the light receiving section that is composed of a photodiode for the water absorption wavelength. The light is refracted by the optical filter section and sent to the light receiving section which is a photodiode for the reference wavelength. Then, depending on the amount of light received by each of the photodiodes, the infrared detecting element section converts the voltage value into large and small values, and the detected voltage value is sent to the discriminating section of the control section 11 with a built-in CPU. The rice is discriminated between paddy and brown rice by a predetermined discrimination threshold. The detection wavelength range is not limited to the above-mentioned near-infrared light, and may be any one that can discriminate between paddy and brown rice based on the amount of transmitted light or the amount of reflected light.

Then, the large and small voltage values converted by the infrared detecting element section of the grain discrimination sensor 1 are sent to a discrimination section of a control section (not shown) with a built-in CPU and a predetermined discrimination threshold value is set. It is configured such that the refined brown rice and the defective rice are discriminated, and when the predetermined number of grains is reached, the mixing ratio of the refined brown rice and the defective rice is calculated.
In this embodiment, a tungsten lamp is used for the light emitting portion, and the transmission wavelength 145 is used for the optical filter portion.
An interference filter of 0 nanometer (nm) is used, and an InGaAs-PIN photo diode (manufactured by Hamamatsu Photonics KK) is used for the infrared detecting element. In addition,
The wavelength range is not limited to the above wavelength range as long as the wavelength range is absorbed by water.

Brown rice taken out from the hulling and sorting machine (mixed rice of refined brown rice, defective rice such as dead rice, colored rice, damaged rice, and paddy rice)
Regarding the difference in water content on the surface, the rice husk on the surface of the paddy contains silicon and does not contain water, and the surface of the unhulled rice that has been peeled off from the paddy is compared with the rice husk. Contains a lot of water. Among the unpolished rice, there is a difference in water content between the fine unpolished rice, which is high quality unpolished rice, green rice, dead rice, damaged grain, and colored grain. Then, when brown rice is irradiated with near-infrared light including a wavelength range of 1450 nm from the light emitting part, in the wavelength range where the wavelength of 1450 nm is absorbed by moisture, the amount of water absorbed by the paddy is small and the reflected light or transmitted light is small. The amount of light increases, and the amount of reflected light decreases in brown rice due to the large amount of water absorbed on the surface, and the amount of reflected light decreases between brown rice in the order of dead rice, colored rice, damaged rice, refined brown rice, and blue rice. It was found that the amount of light received by the refined brown rice was small and the amount of green rice was even smaller.

As shown in FIG.
As shown in (3), the paddy has a high voltage value in the subsequent infrared detecting element part, and the brown rice has a lower voltage value than the paddy, but dead rice, colored rice, damaged rice, refined brown rice, blue It is converted to a lower voltage value in the order of rice. Then, by setting the intermediate value between the voltage value of the damaged rice and the voltage value of the refined brown rice as the threshold value of the refined brown rice / defective rice, it is possible to distinguish between the refined brown rice and the defective rice. In addition, when the measurement diameter of the near-infrared light from the light emitting portion of the grain discrimination sensor 1 is set to about 3 mm which is about the width of the paddy, the discrimination result becomes good.

As described above, the difference in water content on the surface of the grain is used to distinguish between fine brown rice and defective rice, and the difference in the amount of light reflected or transmitted due to the difference in color on the surface of the conventional grain. With the optical sensor, there were problems such as an error in distinguishing between green rice, colored rice and paddy, and difficulty in distinguishing between refined brown rice and defective rice in glutinous rice. It is possible to accurately distinguish between refined brown rice and defective rice.

Next, based on the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, a sorting apparatus for the refined brown rice and the defective rice using the grain discrimination sensor 1 will be described. When brown rice is supplied to the upper portion of the upper rail 2 one by one from the hopper, the brown rice flows down on the upper rail 2, jumps from the lower end portion of the sorting space portion 3 to the upper portion of the lower rail 4. Is flowed down and dropped into the refined brown rice sorting box 5. A grain discriminating sensor 1 is arranged above the sorting space portion 3, and brown rice passing through the sorting space portion 3 is irradiated with the near-infrared light from a light emitting portion of the grain discriminating sensor 1 and reflected by the light. The amount of light is converted into a voltage value by the infrared detection element unit and sent to a determination unit of a control unit (not shown), and the detected voltage value is discriminated between refined brown rice and defective brown rice with a predetermined threshold value.

When it is determined that the defective brown rice is defective, an air injection command is issued from the control unit (not shown) to the opening / closing valve of the compressor (not shown), air is ejected from the air nozzle 7, and the defective brown rice is blown away. Then, the defective brown rice sorting box 8 is removed. When the determination result is refined brown rice, the injection command is not issued, and the refined brown rice is dropped as it is in the selection space portion 3 and stored in the refined brown rice selection box 5.

As described above, by utilizing the difference in water content on the surface of the grain to distinguish between the refined brown rice and the defective rice, and the defective rice is selected and separated, it is not affected by the difference in color on the surface of the grain. The sorting accuracy is improved.

Next, based on the embodiment shown in FIG. 3, another embodiment of the sorting apparatus using the grain discrimination sensor 1 will be described. The vertical grain sorter 9 is conventionally well-known and separates and sorts brown rice into fine brown rice, small brown rice and defective rice. When brown rice is supplied to the lower supply hopper 9a, the brown rice is fried upward in the fried helix cylinder 9b. The brown rice in the fried grain is fried by centrifugal force while coming into contact with the selection net cylinder 9c on the outer peripheral side. Small rice, small dead rice, and defective rice with damaged rice are sorted net cylinder 9c.
Leakage from the small holes of the above, and the rice is separated and separated in the small rice chamber 9d on the outer peripheral side. In addition, the large-sized refined brown rice is fried without leaking to the upper side, and is taken out to the take-out tank 9e by the splash plate on the upper part of the fried helix cylinder 9b.

The grain discriminating sensor 1 is attached to a portion of the vertical grain sorter 9 in the take-out tank 9e where the refined brown rice is splashed or a wall surface of the take-out tank 9e.
The distinction between refined brown rice and defective rice is detected. Then, these detection data are sent to the control unit (not shown) to calculate the defective rice rate. When the defective rice rate is higher than the reference value, the control unit (not shown) notifies the display unit (not shown) that the sorting net cylinder 9c is replaced with one having a small hole size from a small one. It

When the defective rice detection rate is lower than the reference value, a small rice return flow path (not shown) at the bottom of the small rice chamber 9d gives an operation command notification to the supply hopper 9a to return a part of the small rice. In addition, based on a small rice return command from a control unit (not shown), the opening / closing valve (not shown) of the small rice return flow passage is automatically controlled to reduce a part of the small rice and defective rice, and refined brown rice Control is performed to return the defective rice rate to the standard value range.

[0018]

As described above, according to the present invention, when distinguishing between refined brown rice and defective rice, the difference in water content on the surface of brown rice is used to distinguish between refined brown rice and defective rice. Can be accurately determined without being affected by the difference in.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view and a block diagram.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of a swing selection plate showing a detection state and a graph showing a detected voltage value.

FIG. 3 is a graph showing a distribution probability of exposed area of paddy during a sorting operation using a swing sorting plate.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Grain discrimination sensor, 2 ... Upper rail, 3 ... Sorting space part, 4 ... Lower rail, 5 ... Refined brown rice sorting box, 7 ... Air nozzle, 8 ... Bad rice sorting box, 9 ... Vertical grain Grain sorter

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A light emitting unit for irradiating near-infrared light including a wavelength range absorbed by water, and only a wavelength range absorbed by water from the reflected or transmitted light of the grain of the near-infrared light is transmitted. A grain discrimination sensor 1 including an optical filter portion and an infrared detection element portion that converts the near-infrared light that has passed through the optical filter portion into a large and small voltage, and a light emitting portion of the grain discrimination sensor 1. From the above-mentioned near-infrared light to the polished rice and the defective brown rice / defective rice discrimination means for discriminating between the polished brown rice and the defective brown rice based on the magnitude of the voltage value converted from the reflected light or transmitted light thereof Rice discrimination device.