JPH0225227B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a counter, and more particularly, to a counter capable of counting objects to be measured whose location and number are uncertain.

(b) Conventional technology Conventionally, in order to measure the number of holes in an object to be measured, for example, a substrate with multiple holes, a light receiving section receives light emitted from a light source using a CCD camera, etc., and detects whether or not the light is received using a micrometer. This was done using a device that transmitted data to a computer and stored it. That is, the substrate is passed straight horizontally between the light sources and the light receiving section which are arranged vertically. In this device, light from areas with holes reaches the light receiving section, while light from areas without holes is blocked and does not reach the light receiving section. The presence or absence of this light reception is used as information for each point on the object to be measured, which is scanned in a dot-width slice in a direction perpendicular to the direction of movement of the object to be measured, transmitted from the light receiving section to a microcomputer, and stored. Next, the image on the storage device is sequentially scanned by raster scanning, and one pixel is found and labeled. Next, the same label is attached to the 8 neighbors or pixels within the 8 neighborhoods of this labeled pixel, and when there are no more pixels to be newly labeled, the same label is assigned to one connected pixel. When there are no more pixels to be newly labeled, the scan is performed again, and when a pixel that does not yet have a label is found, a new label that has not been used before is attached, and the same pixel is again applied to the 8-neighborhood or within the 8-neighborhood. Label. By repeating this operation, when the images of all the dots on the object to be measured have been scanned, the number of labels used for labeling becomes the number of holes on the object to be measured.

In addition, in order to easily realize counting using a method using this labeling algorithm,
53-66276〓A device for counting the number of moving objects〓 was available.
The counting method of this conventional example will be briefly explained with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5. 101 is a belt conveyor, 102 is an object to be measured, 1
03 is a sensor. The belt conveyor 101 is
The object to be measured 102 is transported, and the sensor 1
03 scanning position is passed. The sensor 103 is
Photoconductive element array 105 via condensing lens 104
and a scanning device 106 to sequentially scan the transferred object 102 in a direction crossing the transfer direction, and a control circuit counts the scanning signals. This control circuit is as shown in FIG. 5, and the scanning image signal outputted by the sensor 103 in the counting period is generated when the transferred object 102, which is the object to be measured, is sensed by FF1 (abbreviation for flip-flop, hereinafter the same). It is output as a count signal through FF2 and FF3, and is also output to NA (abbreviation for NAND gate, the same applies hereinafter) 1, NA2, and NA3. On the other hand, the SR (abbreviation for shift register, hereinafter the same) sequentially inputs and stores the scanning image signals output from the sensor 103, and outputs the scanning image signals from the previous scan to NA1 to NA3.
At this time, NA1 inputs the current scanning image pickup signal at bit position n, inputs the signal at bit position n+1 of the previous scan image pickup signal, and takes NAND. Similarly, in NA2, the bit position n of the previous scanning imaging signal is input together with the current scanning imaging signal at bit position n, and the NAND is taken. Input bit position n-1 of the signal and take NAND. If any of NA1 to NA3 has an output signal, that output signal is input to FF2 as a clear signal. FF
In FF2, the clear signal does not output the signal due to the input of the signal at bit position n of the current scanning signal, and no signal is output from FF2 to FF3. Therefore, when the transferred object 102, which is the sequentially scanned object to be measured, is scanned for the first time, the scanning image signals of the previous scan are all signals in a state where the transferred object 102 is not detected, so cancel signals by NA1 to NA3 are not output. counting the transferred items 102;
In subsequent scans, the signals of the same transferred object 102 are canceled and not counted due to NA1 to NA3, so that the number of a plurality of transferred objects 102 transferred on the belt conveyor 101 can be counted.

(c) Problems to be Solved by the Invention In the conventional method, the object to be measured is irradiated with light from a light source, the light is received by the light receiving section, and then the presence or absence of light reception for all dots assumed on the object to be measured is measured using a micrometer. The data had to be stored in a computer, and complicated computer software was required for labeling. Furthermore, repeated scanning and labeling required a large amount of counting time.

Furthermore, in the conventional method related to Utility Model Application No. 53-66276,
For example, if the shape of the object to be measured is shown in Figure 7a, the transport direction is X, the scanning direction is Y, and each scan is T ₀
〜T ₅ , and if the width y in the Y direction is 1 bit width, then
When the measured object scans T ₁ , the signal from the previous operation does not detect the measured object, so NA1 to NA
3 is not canceled, so when 〓1〓 is counted and T ₂ is scanned, the signal of the object to be scanned this time is canceled by NA1 to NA3 and is not counted, so it is counted normally. However, when scanning T ₃ , the length of the object to be measured in the Y direction is longer than that of the previous scan, and is longer than that of the previous scan to a position where the object to be measured is not detected, so it corresponds to the nth bit. Measuring part 1 of the object to be measured
The signal that detected the shape of 07 is NA1 to NA3
Even when compared with the signal scanned last time, the signal deviates from n±1 bits, so it cannot be canceled. Then, FF2 sends out an output signal for counting, the counter counts, and the counting result is erroneously calculated as 〓2〓.As a result, the object to be measured having the shape shown in Fig. 6 is not normal. I had the problem of not being able to count. Further, even with the object to be measured having the shape as shown in FIG. 7, the count becomes 2 at a position such as _T10 , so there is a problem that normal counting cannot be performed as in FIG. 6.

(d) Means for solving the problem This invention sequentially scans the object to be measured in the traveling direction and the cross direction when the object passes, and identifies the presence or absence of the object at each scan. A measuring section that measures, digitizes and transmits the signal, a storage section that stores the signal from the measuring section, and a measuring section that inputs the signal from the measuring section and performs a positive count when sensing the object to be measured. The signal from the counter and the signal from the previous scan stored from the storage section are input and compared, and if both signals are signals that detect the object to be measured, the counter section performs a negative count, and the signal from the counter is input. It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned problems by providing a counter characterized by comprising a display section that displays results.

(e) Effect In this invention, the object to be measured is transported to the measuring section in a direction transverse to the direction of movement of the object to be measured, and is sequentially scanned in the direction intersecting the moving direction of the object to be measured. Then, in response to changes in light due to the presence or absence of the object to be measured obtained by scanning, the measuring section identifies and measures the presence or absence of the object to be measured, and further digitizes and transmits a signal. The storage section stores the digitized signal from the measurement section, and transmits the stored signal during the next scan.

On the other hand, at the same time as the storage section, the signal transmitted by the measurement section is also input to the counting section. The counting section simultaneously inputs the signal from the previous scan stored in the storage section, inputs the signal from the measuring section, performs a positive count when sensing an object to be measured, and also inputs the signal from the counting section. and the signal from the previous scan stored from the storage unit are input and compared, and if both signals are signals that detected the object to be measured, a negative count is performed, so that the signal sent from the measurement unit is the signal that detected the object to be measured. In this case, a positive count is performed, and a negative count is performed if the signal from the storage section and the signal from the measurement section are signals that indicate the object to be measured. Next, the display section displays the counting result based on the signal from the counting section.
The objects to be measured are counted by scanning the entire object to be measured as described above.

(F) Embodiment The following will describe an embodiment of the present invention with reference to FIG. 1, FIG. 2 which shows a parts diagram of the invention, and FIG. 3 which explains a counting method.

First, the configuration of this counter will be explained according to FIGS. 1 and 2.

1 is a light source. Light source 1 is a linear light source.
Reference numeral 2 denotes a measuring section, and the measuring section 2 is arranged vertically above the light source 1 to maintain a distance between the light source 1 and the measuring section 2 through which the object to be measured can pass. Install it so that there is nothing blocking access to Part 2.

3 is a transport device, and 4 is an object to be measured. The object to be measured 4 is placed on a transport device 3, and is moved by the transport device 3 so as to intersect with the linear direction of the light source 1.
The part of the object to be measured 4 that is conveyed between the light source 1 and the measuring section 2 and has no holes blocks the light from the light source 1,
The light from the light source 1 is allowed to reach the measuring section 2 without reaching the measuring section 2 in the perforated portion. At this time, the measurement unit 2 receives light corresponding to the width of the measured object 4 on the measured object 4 in a direction perpendicular to the traveling direction of the measured object 4, and the measured object 4 is sequentially moved by the transport device 3. Therefore, the measuring section 2 scans the object 4 to be measured. In the measuring section 2, the object to be measured 4 is a collection of dots, the light receiving section 2a receives only the presence or absence of light for each dot, and the signal transmitting section 2b detects whether or not the light receiving section 2a receives light. is 1, and when no light is received, it is digitized as 0 and transmitted.

5 is a storage section. The storage unit 5 stores the signal transmitted from the signal sending unit 2b of the measuring unit 2 into the transport device 3.
are stored sequentially for each width. At this time, the signal from the measuring section 2 is digitized and each collection of dots is stored as if it were on the object to be measured 4. In this embodiment, the storage unit 5 stores one line of input signals, assuming that one line is a collection of dots in the width direction of the object to be measured 4, but it does not necessarily have to be one line, and more than one line can be stored. If possible, it is possible to count the holes, and furthermore, by using a filter or the like for the signal from the measuring section 2 in the present invention, it is also possible to process the shape of the holes.

6 is a counting section. The counting section 6 is composed of an AND gate 7, flip-flop circuits 8a, 8b, a counting counter 9, and a display device 10, as shown in FIG. The AND gate 7 of the counting section 6 receives the signal from the signal sending section 2b of the measuring section 2 and the storage section 5.
A signal from the flip-flop circuit 8b is inputted, an AND is performed, and the comparison result is outputted as a signal to the flip-flop circuit 8b. The flip-flop circuit 8b generates a count pulse according to the signal from the AND7, and outputs the count pulse to the counting counter 9. On the other hand, the flip-flop circuit 8a generates count pulses according to the input signal from the signal sending section 2b of the measuring section 2, and outputs the count pulses to the counting counter 9. In the counting counter 9, the count pulses from the flip-flop circuit 8a and the flip-flop circuit 8b are input, and when the count pulse from the flip-flop circuit 8a is input, "1" is added, and when the count pulse from the flip-flop circuit 8b is input, "1" is added. "1" is subtracted from "1", and the count display section 1
Outputs the display signal to 0. The count display section 10 displays the count results in accordance with the display signal from the count counter 9.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 2, the line of the signal that is currently being scanned and transmitted is designated as A, the signal one line before A is designated as B, and the signal A that is currently being transmitted by the measuring section 2 is designated as A. and 1 stored in the storage unit 5
Input in synchronization with signal B before the line. At this time, in the storage unit 5, the signal B of one line before is stored in the counting unit 6.
At the same time, the signal currently being transmitted by the measuring section 2 is stored. In the counting section 6, when the currently transmitted signal A changes from 0 to 1, the flip-flop circuit 8a
generates a count pulse and sets count counter 9 to 1.
Add. Also, the currently transmitted signal A and 1
The signal B in front of the line is input to the AND gate 7 in synchronization with it, and when the output signal of the AND gate 7 changes from 1 to 0, a count pulse is generated in the flip-flop circuit 8b and 1 is subtracted from the counting counter 9. By performing this operation on all lines on the object to be measured 4 and displaying it on the counting display unit 10, the number of holes can be counted and displayed. Further, in this embodiment, the object to be counted of the object to be measured 4 is the light source 1.
We have described an example in which the light from the light source 1 is allowed to reach the measurement unit 2, and the parts of the object to be measured 4 that are not to be counted are blocked from the light from the light source 1. It is also possible to block the light from the light source 1 and allow the light from the light source 1 to reach the measuring section 2 from a portion of the object to be measured 4 that is not to be counted. In this case, when the currently scanned signal A changes from 1 to 0, the flip-flop circuit 8
Generate a count pulse at a, count counter 9
Add 1 to . Also, the signal A that is currently being scanned,
Synchronize with signal B one line before, AND gate 7
and the output signal of AND gate 7 changes from 0 to 1.
When , the flip-flop circuit 8b generates a count pulse and subtracts 1 from the counting counter 9. Further, in this embodiment, information on the object to be measured is measured using light, but it is also possible to use means other than light, such as the presence or absence of current, the difference in magnetic poles, the presence or absence of polarized light, etc.

Furthermore, as an example, holes 11 of arbitrary shapes on the object to be measured 4 shown in FIG. 3 will be counted based on the example.

The line of the signal currently being scanned and transmitted is A.
Let B be the signal from one line before, and represent it on the object to be measured 4. Reference numerals 11 denote holes formed on the object 4 to be measured.

As shown in FIG. 3a, the measuring section 2
When the current scanning signal advances and reaches point (a), the light receiving section 2a receives the light that has passed through the hole 11, and sends a light reception signal to the signal sending section 2b. . Since the signal sending section 2b receives the received signal from the light receiving section 2a, it digitizes the signal and transmits 1 to the flip-flop circuit 8a. In the flip-flop circuit 8a, the signal sending section 2
Since the signal 1 from point b is input and the signal during scanning before reaching point (a) is 0, the signal changes from 0 to 1, and the flip-flop circuit 8a generates a count pulse, adds 1 to the counter 9, and counts the display section 10. "1" is displayed. At this time, the signal A currently being scanned and the signal B from one line before are simultaneously input to the AND gate 7. In ANDGATE 7,
If you AND the signal A currently being scanned and the signal B one line before, it becomes 0, so the AND gate 7
No signal is output from. Therefore, the flip-flop circuit 8b does not generate a count pulse, and the counting counter 9, which receives the signal from the flip-flop circuit 8b, does not output a signal, and the count of the counting counter 9 is 0 and no counting is performed.
Therefore, when the currently scanning signal A passes point (a) and finishes scanning the line shown in FIG. 1" is displayed.

When the scanning progresses further and reaches the state shown in Figure 3b, when the currently scanning signal A reaches point (b), the signal changes from 0 to 1, and the flip-flop circuit 8a generates a count pulse, and the counter Add 1 to 9 and the count value becomes “2” and count display section 1
0 displays "2". When the scanning progresses further and reaches point (c), the signal A currently being scanned and the signal B one line before are both 1, so the AND gate 7
When the output signal of becomes 1 and further reaches point (d),
The output signal of the AND gate 7 becomes 0, a count pulse is generated by the flip-flop circuit 8b, 1 is subtracted from the counter 9, and "1" is displayed on the count display section 10, the same as when it was displayed in the state shown in FIG. 3a. indicate. In the scanning from FIG. 3 b to FIG. 3 c, the same counting as in FIG. it's shown. As the scanning progresses further, the state shown in FIG. 3c is reached. When the currently scanning signal A shown in Figure 3c reaches point (e),
The signal changes from 0 to 1 and the flip-flop circuit 8a
generates a count pulse and counter 9
1 is added to , and the count display section 10 displays "2". As the scanning progresses further and reaches point (f), the signal A currently being scanned and the signal B from one line before each become 1 and are input to the AND gate 7, and the output signal of the AND gate 7 becomes 1. Scanning continues
When point (g) is reached, the output signal of the AND gate 7 changes from 1 to 0, the flip-flop circuit 8b generates a count pulse, subtracts 1 from the counter 9, and the count display section 10 displays "1". .
When the scanning progresses further and reaches point (h), the signal A currently being scanned becomes 1, and the flip-flop circuit 8
a, a count pulse is generated, 1 is added to the counter 9, and the count display section 10 displays "2". Further, up to FIG. 3d, the counting performed in FIG. 3b is repeated, so the count display section 10 displays "2" immediately before FIG. 3d. As the scanning progresses further, at point (i) in Figure 3d, the signal A currently being scanned changes from 0 to 1, so the flip-flop circuit 8a generates a count pulse, adds 1 to the counter 9, and displays the count display. 10 displays "3", and the signal A currently being scanned and the signal B one line before are both 1, and the output of the AND gate 7 is 1. Further scanning progresses, (j)
When the point is reached, the signal A currently being scanned is 1, but the signal B from one line before becomes 0, and the output signal of the AND gate 7 changes from 1 to 0. Then, a count pulse is generated from the flip-flop circuit 8b, 1 is subtracted from the counter 9, and the count display section 10 displays "2", and when the scanning progresses further and reaches point (k), the signal B of the previous line becomes 1. Therefore, the output signal of the AND gate 7 is 1, and the count display section 10 is still
is displaying "2". When the scanning progresses further and reaches point (1), both the currently scanning signal A and the signal B from one line before become 0, the output signal of the AND gate 7 changes from 1 to 0, and the count is started by the flip-flop circuit 8b. A pulse is generated, 1 is subtracted from the counter 9, and the count display section 10 displays "1". After further scanning, in the state shown in Figure 3e,
(m) When the point is reached, the signal A that is currently being scanned
is 0, and the signal B one line before is 1, but
The output signal of the AND gate 7 is 0, and the count display section 10 still displays "1". As the scanning progresses further, even at point (n), the output signal of the AND gate 7 is 0, the count display section 10 is displaying "1", and when the hole 11 has been scanned, the counter 9
is counting 1, and the count display section 10 shows the number of holes "1". When the object to be measured 4 has been completely scanned by the method described above, the count display section 10 displays the total number of holes on the object to be measured 4, and the counting ends.

(G) Effects According to the method described above, there is no need to memorize all the signals that scan the object to be measured, and there is no need to count the number of holes using techniques such as labeling algorithms, and there is no need for complicated computer software. , it becomes possible to perform counting with a relatively simple configuration, and moreover, the measurement time can be shortened.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram of its parts, and FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a counting method. 4 to 7 are explanatory diagrams of conventional examples. 1... Light source, 2... Measuring section, 2a... Light receiving section, 2b...
Signal sending unit, 3... Conveyance device, 4... Measured object, 5...
Storage section, 6... Counting section, 7... AND gate, 8a,
8b...Flip-flop circuit, 9...Counter, 10...Display device, 11...Hole.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A measurement unit that sequentially scans the object to be measured in the traveling direction and the cross direction when the object to be measured passes, identifies and measures the presence or absence of the object for each scan, and digitizes and transmits a signal; A storage unit that stores signals from the measurement unit, inputs signals from the measurement unit, performs a positive count when sensing an object to be measured, and stores signals from the measurement unit and signals from the previous scan stored from the storage unit. It is characterized by comprising a counting section that inputs and compares the signals, and performs a negative count when both signals are signals that have detected the object to be measured, and a display section that displays the counting result by inputting the signal from the counting section. Counting machine.