Conveyor belt monitoring system and method
First Claim
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1. A conveyor belt temperature anomaly detection system, comprising:
- an infrared line scanner having one or more infrared detectors and arranged to scan the surface of a conveyor belt in a direction perpendicular to the direction of travel of the conveyor belt and to generate thermal image data in dependence on infrared radiation detected by the infrared detector; and
a processing unit configured to perform processing operations to process the thermal image data to identify temperature anomalies in the material travelling on the surface of the conveyor belt, the processing operations including;
receiving a plurality of scan lines from the infrared line scanner, the scan lines comprising a plurality of pixels each having a pixel value corresponding to a temperature of the material detected at that pixel;
assembling a thermal image of the conveyor belt from the plurality of scan lines, the thermal image made up of the plurality of pixels;
filtering the image to remove high frequency spatial information from the image to remove small temperature anomalies from the thermal image; and
identifying, in the thermal image, groups of pixels having anomalous pixel values corresponding to temperature anomalies in the material.
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Abstract
A conveyor belt temperature anomaly detection system, comprising: an infrared line scanner having one or more infrared detectors and arranged to scan the surface of a conveyor belt in a direction perpendicular to the direction of travel of the conveyor belt and to generate thermal image data in dependence on infrared radiation detected by the infrared detector; and a processing unit configured to process the thermal image data to identify temperature anomalies in the material travelling on the surface of the conveyor belt.
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Citations
47 Claims
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1. A conveyor belt temperature anomaly detection system, comprising:
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an infrared line scanner having one or more infrared detectors and arranged to scan the surface of a conveyor belt in a direction perpendicular to the direction of travel of the conveyor belt and to generate thermal image data in dependence on infrared radiation detected by the infrared detector; and a processing unit configured to perform processing operations to process the thermal image data to identify temperature anomalies in the material travelling on the surface of the conveyor belt, the processing operations including; receiving a plurality of scan lines from the infrared line scanner, the scan lines comprising a plurality of pixels each having a pixel value corresponding to a temperature of the material detected at that pixel; assembling a thermal image of the conveyor belt from the plurality of scan lines, the thermal image made up of the plurality of pixels; filtering the image to remove high frequency spatial information from the image to remove small temperature anomalies from the thermal image; and identifying, in the thermal image, groups of pixels having anomalous pixel values corresponding to temperature anomalies in the material. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A conveyor belt temperature anomaly detection system, comprising:
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a two dimensional array of infrared detectors arranged to receive infrared radiation from the surface of a conveyor belt and to generate thermal image data in dependence on the received infrared radiation; and a processing unit configured to perform processing operations to process the thermal image data to identify temperature anomalies in the material travelling on the surface of the conveyor belt, the processing operations including; receiving the thermal image data from the array of infrared detectors, the thermal image data comprising a plurality of pixels each having a pixel value corresponding to a temperature value of the material detected by that pixel; assembling a thermal image of the conveyer belt from the plurality of pixels; filtering the image to remove high frequency spatial information from the image to remove small temperature anomalies from the thermal image; and identifying, in the thermal image, groups of pixels having anomalous pixel values corresponding to temperature anomalies in the material. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A method for detecting temperature anomalies in material transported on a conveyor belt, the method comprising:
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scanning an infrared line scanner across the surface of the conveyor belt in a direction perpendicular to the direction of travel of the conveyor belt; generating thermal image data based on infrared radiation received by the infrared line scanner from the material travelling on the conveyor belt; and processing the thermal image data to identify temperature anomalies in material travelling on the surface of the conveyor belt, wherein the processing comprises; receiving a plurality of scan lines in the generated thermal image data, the scan lines comprising a plurality of pixels having pixel values; assembling a thermal image of the conveyor belt from the plurality of scan lines, the thermal image made up of the plurality of pixels; filtering the thermal image to remove high frequency spatial information to remove small temperature anomalies from the thermal image; and identifying, in the thermal image, groups of pixels having anomalous pixel values corresponding to temperature anomalies in the material. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
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36. A method for detecting temperature anomalies in material transported on a conveyor belt, the method comprising:
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directing a two dimensional array of infrared detectors toward a surface of the conveyor belt; generating thermal image data in dependence on received infrared radiation; and processing the thermal image data to identify temperature anomalies in the material travelling on the surface of the conveyor belt, wherein the processing the thermal image data comprises; receiving the thermal image data from the array of detectors, the thermal image data comprising a plurality of pixels each having a pixel value corresponding to a temperature value of the material detected by that pixel; assembling a thermal image of the conveyer belt from the plurality of pixels; filtering the thermal image to remove high frequency spatial information to remove small temperature anomalies from the thermal image; and identifying, in the thermal image groups of pixels having anomalous pixel values corresponding to temperature anomalies in the material. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46)
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47. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium containing machine-readable instructions configured to cause a processor of a conveyor belt temperature anomaly detection system to perform operations for processing thermal image data to identify temperature anomalies in material travelling on a surface of a conveyor belt, the operations comprising:
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receiving a plurality of scan lines of thermal image data associated with material travelling on the conveyor belt, the scan lines comprising a plurality of pixels having pixel values; assembling a thermal image of the conveyor belt from the plurality of scan lines, the thermal image made up of the plurality of pixels; filtering the thermal image to remove high frequency spatial information to remove small temperature anomalies from the thermal image; and identifying, in the thermal image, groups of pixels having anomalous pixel values corresponding to temperature anomalies in the material.
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Specification