JPS6355649B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an optical adjustment mechanism in a solid drug appearance inspection apparatus that takes an optical image of a solid drug such as a pharmaceutical capsule tablet and inspects its appearance.

FIG. 1 is a front view of the capsule visual inspection device. In the figure, 1 is the main body of the inspection device, 2 is the hopper storing the capsules, 3 is the supply drum, and 4 is the hopper that stores the capsules.
is the first inspection drum, 5 is the second inspection drum, 6 is the defective product shoot, 7 is the good product shoot, 8 is the sensor,
9 is a scraping brush, and 10 is a mirror.

In FIG. 1, capsules (not shown) stored in the hopper 2 are first transferred to pockets provided around the supply drum 3. At this time, capsules that do not fit into the pocket are scraped back into the hopper 2 by the scraping brush 9. The capsules transported by the rotating supply drum 3 are then transferred to pockets provided around the periphery of the first inspection drum 4 in the same manner as in the supply drum 3. 1st
FIG. A is a top view showing a state in which capsules 12 are accommodated in pockets 11 provided around the first supply inspection drum 4. FIG. At this time, since a negative pressure is applied to the pocket 11 from the inside by means not shown, the capsule 12 is attracted to the pocket 11, and even if the drum 4 rotates, the capsule 12 will not fall.

Returning to FIG. 1, while the capsule is conveyed by a distance corresponding to half the rotation of the first inspection drum 4, light is projected by means not shown, and the reflected light is sent to the sensor 8 via the mirror 10. The appearance of the lower half is inspected. The capsule is then transferred to a pocket on the periphery of the second inspection drum 5, and the visual inspection of its upper half is then carried out in a similar manner. As a result of the inspection, if the product is good, it will be sent to good product chute 7, if it is defective, it will be sent to defective product chute 6.
They will be distributed to each.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the appearance inspection status of the capsule. The capsule consists of a body 12a and a cap 12b. And body 12a and cap 1
2b are mutually locked by a fitting hole 12c. FIG. 2A is a side view of the capsule in FIG. 2 after being rotated 90 degrees, and shows the body 12.
It can be seen that the cap 12a and the cap 12b are locked to each other by the fitting hole 12c.

Returning to FIG. 2, the capsule 12 is irradiated with light, and the industrial television camera 13 is used as a sensor to inspect the appearance of the capsule.

Now, in the automatic capsule visual inspection apparatus as described above, an optical image of the capsule, which is the object to be inspected, is provided to an imaging device such as an industrial television camera via a mirror. The present invention relates to an optical system comprising such a mirror and an imaging device. It is desired that the optical image of the object to be inspected be guided to a desired position and in a desired attitude on the camera plane. This will be explained below.

FIG. 3A is a side view of the reflection mirror 10 that reflects the optical image and guides it to the camera surface, and FIG. 3B is a plan view of the same. Mirror 10 is often rotated to change the angle of reflection of the optical image in order to properly guide the optical image to the camera. There are two ways to do this rotation.

In FIGS. 3A and 3B, the mirror 10 is rotated in the direction shown by arrow 14 around the X-axis on the mirror surface, and in the direction shown by arrow 15 around the Y-axis perpendicular to the X-axis. In the case, it is. Hereinafter, the former rotation around the X-axis will be referred to as rotation, and the latter rotation around the Y-axis will be referred to as tailing.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of the relationship between the scanning direction 16 of the camera and the reference direction S of the optical image 12A of the capsule, which is the object to be inspected. Now, the reference direction of the capsule, which is the object to be inspected, is taken to be its longitudinal direction, and is denoted by S.
Then, when the capsule 12 is visually inspected with a camera, an optical image 12 of the capsule is obtained, as shown in FIG.
If you decide not only to position A at the center of the field of view, but also to align the scanning direction 16 of the camera and the reference direction S of the optical image 12A parallel to each other during inspection, from now on, always align them in parallel during inspection. Otherwise, the test results will be misleading. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 4B, even if the optical image 12A is located at the center of the camera field of view, if its posture is bad and the reference direction S of the optical image and the scanning direction 16 form an angle, , optical image 1 so that these are parallel
2A's posture must be adjusted.

Now, in the conventional optical system of capsule visual inspection equipment, the camera is attached to a sliding mechanism that slides so that the distance to the object to be inspected can be adjusted. The optical image of the capsule was adjusted to be in the center of the camera's field of view by adjusting the rotation in two directions. Simply bringing the optical image to the center of the camera's field of view was possible by rotating the mirror in two directions, but
It has been difficult to correct the posture of the optical image using conventional methods. In other words, since the parallelism between the mounting reference plane of the camera in the visual inspection device and the scanning direction of the camera mounted there differs from camera to camera, it is necessary to set the reference direction of the optical image of the capsule to be parallel to the scanning direction. When the mirror is tailed, the optical image moves away from the center of the camera's field of view, and when the mirror is tailed so that the optical image is at the center of the camera's field of view, the reference direction of the optical image and the camera's scanning direction are are no longer parallel. This relationship will be explained with reference to FIG.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the results of tailing adjustment in a conventional optical system. As seen in the figure, capsules A and B (as explained with reference to Figure 1A, two rows of capsules are arranged on the drum surface, and two rows of capsules are inspected with a camera) are connected to a mirror. If the transport direction of the capsule is at right angles, it will be reflected as A′ and B′ through the mirror.
At this time, if you adjust the tailing of the mirror because the position of the image in the camera field of view is bad, it will be the same as rotating the mirror surface from the X direction to the The reference direction of the capsule and the scanning direction of the camera are no longer parallel.

In order to reduce the influence of tailing adjustment on parallelism, conventionally the tailing adjustment fulcrum was placed as far away as possible and adjustment was made at the edge of practical performance. However, as a practical matter, there are large variations in parallelism depending on the camera, making this adjustment work (optimal adjustment) difficult.

The present invention was made in order to solve the problems of the prior art as described above, and adjusts the position of an optical image within the field of view of a camera without impairing the parallelism between the reference direction of the image and the scanning direction of the camera. An object of the present invention is to provide an optical adjustment mechanism in a solid agent visual inspection device that can perform the following steps.

Another object of the present invention is that once the camera position is fixed, it does not move easily (this property of not moving is hereinafter referred to as rigidity). An object of the present invention is to provide an optical adjustment mechanism.

The gist of the configuration of the present invention is that an imaging device such as a camera is directly provided with means for adjusting the angle between the image scanning direction of the device and the reference direction on the object to be inspected.

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. First, the mirror will be explained. Although it is the same as the conventional mirror in that it allows the mirror to perform rotation adjustment and tailing adjustment, the specific structure for this purpose is shown in FIG.

FIG. 6A is a plan view showing the structure of a mirror portion in an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 6B is a side view of the same. In these figures, 10 is a mirror, 17 is a rotation adjustment screw, 18 is a tailing adjustment screw, 19 is a pivot screw, 20 is a hole for rotation adjustment, 21 is a mirror part board, 22
is the mirror mounting body.

The mirror 10 can be rotated in the direction of arrow R about the X axis perpendicular to the plane of the paper in FIG. 6B for rotation adjustment. To do this, loosen the adjustment screw 17 on the board 21 on which the mirror 10 is attached, and rotate the board 21 within the range of the hole 20 drilled in the radial direction around the X-axis to adjust the rotation. After that, tighten the screw 17 to fix it. To adjust the tailing of the mirror 10, use the pivot screw 19.
This is done by rotating the mirror mounting body 22 in the direction of arrow T about the Y-axis passing through. To do this, loosen the tailing adjustment screw 18 and
This is done by rotating the mirror mounting body 22 about the axis and then tightening the screw 18.

As described above, each adjustment screw is locked after the optical image is brought to the center position of the camera field of view by the rotation adjustment and tailing adjustment of the mirror.

Next, the camera will be explained. FIG. 7A is a front view of the camera portion in the embodiment of the present invention;
Figure 7B is a plan view of the same, and Figure 7C is a side view of the same.
In these figures, 10 is a mirror, 13 is a camera, 13a is a lens surface, 13b is a reference direction, 23
is the camera mounting base, 23a is the parallelism adjustment screw, 24
is the second camera mount, 24a is the longitudinal slide adjustment screw, 25 is the third camera mount, 25a
2 is a fixing screw for the camera mount, 26 is a screw washer plate, and 27 is a shaft.

Now, in FIG. 7A, if the camera 13 is rotated in the P direction about the axis 27, the lens surface 13
Since the scanning direction 13b in a is also inclined accordingly, this scanning direction 13b can be made to coincide with the reference direction of the optical image of the capsule. The reason why the camera mounting base is made of three layers 23 to 25 is that two of these are used to adjust the rotation of the camera 13 in the direction of arrow P around the shaft 27, and the remaining one is used for distance adjustment (focus adjustment) between the camera and the object to be inspected.

A shaft 27 is sandwiched between camera mounts 23 and 24. Therefore, among the four screws 23a, if we strongly tighten the two on the right side of the shaft 27 and loosen the two on the left side, the camera 13 will be attached to the shaft 27.
Tilt to the left around 7. If you loosen the two on the right and tighten the two on the left, the camera 13 will tilt to the right. In this way, the parallelism of the optical image in the scanning direction 13b with respect to the reference direction can be adjusted.
Since the shaft 27 is sandwiched between the mounting bases 23 and 24, there is no play in the hinge and the shaft 27 has excellent rigidity. Next, when the screw 24a is loosened, the fitting structure of the camera mounts 25 and 24 allows them to slide in parallel. The screw 24a is fixed to a screw washer plate 26 in the mounting base 25,
It is structured so that it can be slid by the length of the long hole in the mounting base 25.

As described above, according to the present invention, there are adjustment items for positioning the optical image of the object to be inspected at any location on the camera screen with any limited parallelism or angle. By being able to perform these independently, high precision adjustment and adjustment reproducibility can be easily achieved. Additionally, the adjustment time for this part, which conventionally required an hour, has been reduced to less than 10 minutes. In terms of high precision, the parallelism between the longitudinal direction of the capsule and the horizontal scanning line can be adjusted without an error of one horizontal scanning line. In the past, it was difficult to limit the number to one.

The present invention can be generally applied to automatic inspection devices using industrial television cameras.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a front view of the capsule appearance inspection device, Fig. 1A is a top view showing the capsules housed in the pockets on the drum surface, Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the capsule appearance inspection situation, and Fig. 2A is the second Figure 3 is a side view of the capsule after it has been rotated 90 degrees, Figure 3 A is a side view of the reflecting mirror, Figure 3 B is a plan view of the same, Figure 4 is
Figures A and B are explanatory diagrams of the relationship between the scanning direction of the camera and the reference direction of the optical image of the capsule, Figure 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the results of tailing adjustment in a conventional optical system, and Figure 6 A is an explanatory diagram of the relationship between the scanning direction of the camera and the reference direction of the optical image of the capsule. A plan view showing the structure of the mirror part in the embodiment of the invention, FIG. 6B is a side view of the same, FIG. 7A is a front view of the camera part in the embodiment of the invention, Figure 7C is the same side view. Description of symbols 1... Inspection device main body, 2... Hopper, 3... Supply drum, 4... First inspection drum,
5...Second inspection drum, 6...Defective product chute,
7... Good shoot, 8... Sensor, 9... Scraping brush, 10... Mirror, 11... Pocket, 12... Capsule, 13... Industrial television camera, 13a... Lens surface, 13b... Scanning direction, 14, 15...Arrow, 16...Camera scanning direction, 17...Rotation adjustment screw, 18...
... Tailing adjustment screw, 19 ... Pivot adjustment screw, 20 ... Rotation adjustment hole,
21... Board, 22... Mirror mounting body, 23...
Camera mounting base, 23a...Parallelism adjustment screw, 24
...Second camera mount, 24a...Longitudinal slide adjustment screw, 25...Third camera mount,
25a...Fixing screw for camera mounting base, 26...Screw washer, 27...Shaft.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. In an optical adjustment mechanism in a solid drug appearance inspection apparatus that performs an appearance inspection by capturing an optical image of a solid drug being conveyed using a reflecting mirror and an imaging device, the optical adjustment mechanism includes the following: mirror rotation angle adjusting/fixing means 17, 20 capable of rotating and fixing the mirror surface by a desired angle around a first axis (X-axis); a mirror tailing angle adjusting/fixing means 18 capable of rotating and fixing the mirror surface by a desired angle around the axis Y of the image pickup device 13; distance adjustment means 24, 25, which adjusts the distance by sliding the device with respect to a reference table 25;
24a, 26, and the image scanning direction 13 of the imaging device.
Angle adjusting/fixing means 23 for rotating and fixing the device around an axis 27 orthogonal to the image scanning direction 13b in order to adjust the angle between the reference direction S and the reference direction S of the object to be inspected; ,24,2
7, 23a. An optical adjustment mechanism in a solid agent visual inspection apparatus, comprising: