ABSTRACT
Sortex’ “Niagara” optical sorting machine is designed to remove foreign material and add value to both fresh and frozen vegetables, by removal of blemished product. Until recently, optical food sorting machines relied solely on differences in colour, to distinguish between unwanted items and good product. However, this approach is inadequate in applications where the defects are the same colour as the good product. For example: the stems on green beans are the same colour as the beans; insect larvae among blueberries often become the same colour as the berries; pea and pea pod; or green caterpillars or frogs among green beans or peas.
Sortex have developed the technology to simultaneously sort objects for both shape and colour, at rates of up to 40,000 objects per second, across an 1100mm wide line of view. The application of advanced optical sensing technology to achieve a reliable, high quality, simultaneous colour and shape sort, at this remarkable speed, has been pioneered by Sortex.
