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Appearance inspection machine for flat tablet

  • US 20040130709A1
  • Filed: 10/15/2003
  • Published: 07/08/2004
  • Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2002
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
Patent Images

1. An appearance inspection apparatus for a flat tablet which picks up and fetches images of a front surface, a reverse surface and an overall side face of a circular flat tablet, processes the fetched images to detect whether or not the flat tablet has a defective appearance, and separately recovers unacceptable flat tablets having a defective appearance and acceptable flat tablets having a non-defective appearance, comprising:

  • a roller belt including a plurality of rollers connected for rotation in a bridging manner between a pair of endless sprocket chains and being circulated at a predetermined speed;

    a tablet supplying section for supplying any of the flat tablets in an uprightly erected posture with a diametrical direction of the flat tablets directed in an upward and downward direction onto said roller belt;

    a guide path formed from and between a pair of guide walls disposed in a spaced relationship by a predetermined distance from each other in the proximity of an upper face of said roller belt on the downstream side in the circulation direction of said roller belt with respect to said tablet supplying section;

    a front surface image pickup apparatus for picking up an image of the flat tablet placed in the uprightly erected posture on and transported by said roller belt to fetch a front surface image of the flat tablet;

    a reverse surface image pickup apparatus for picking up an image of the flat tablet placed in the uprightly erected posture on and transported by said roller belt to fetch a reverse surface image of the flat tablet;

    a side face image pickup apparatus for picking up an image of the flat tablet placed in the uprightly erected posture on and transported by said roller belt to fetch an image of an overall periphery of a side face of the flat tablet; and

    a rotatable roller disposed in contact with a lower face of said roller belt at the position at which image pickup of the side face of the flat tablet is performed by said side face image pickup apparatus and rotatable at a predetermined speed to rotate those of said rollers of said roller belt with which said rotatable roller contacts; and

    wherein a flat tablet supplied from said tablet supplying section is held in an uprightly erected posture between adjacent ones of said rollers of said roller belt so that the flat tablet is transported in and along said guide path while keeping the uprightly erected posture, and while the flat tablet is transported, a front surface image of the flat tablet is picked up from one side in a direction perpendicular to the transport direction by said front surface image pickup apparatus whereas a reverse surface image of the flat tablet is picked up from the opposite side in the direction perpendicular to the transport direction by said reverse surface image pickup apparatus and besides an image of the flat tablet is picked up from above by said side face image pickup apparatus while the flat tablet is rotated on the rollers of said roller belt rotated by said rotatable roller to fetch an image of the overall periphery of the side face of the flat tablet.

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