A sweet machine vision application

If you live in the UK, or have ever had the pleasure of visiting, you’ll be familiar with the ritual of “dunking” a biccy (short for biscuit, similar, but not quite the same as a cookie,) into a cup of tea. It follows then that the Brits are very particular about the size, shape and consistency of their biscuits.

That’s why UK-based integrator Machine Vision Technology was asked to install an inspection system on a high volume biscuit production line. This uses four Basler scout GigE cameras, and you can learn more by reading “Keeping Biscuits in Good Shape,” published on the Basler web site. (You’ll need to download the pdf to get more than a few crumbs(!))

There are a couple of interesting aspects to this application. First, why use area cameras? I would have expected linescan. And second, biscuit height is determined by “sheet of light” (the old laser line projected at 45 degrees method.) So in effect, this could be claimed as 3D biscuit inspection.

Now, does anyone have any information on a system that checks the quality of the tea?