Packaging defects and agricultural product sorting

Packaging defects

As large volumes of consumer packaged goods travel down the process line, defects in packaging can occur. Your business should consider using CCD/CMOS industrial cameras to identify visible defects, such as dents or punctures in packaging. High speed and high resolution requirements should be prioritized.

Sometimes leaks occur underneath the packaging of a product. InGaAs cameras can detect these hidden leaks under packaging. When leakage occurs, these defective products need to be sorted out and not go to market.

Sometimes containers traveling through the process line are not filled to proper standards. InGaAs cameras can also detect containers that have not been filled properly. A container that is not filled to standards should be sorted out and not go to market.

Visible Packaging of Smoothie

Visible wavelength image of a container.

Invisible Packaging of Smoothie

Infrared image of a container, taken with C12741-03 InGaAs camera, shows proper filling.

Agricultural product sorting

Machine vision can also be used in the food sorting process to distinguish between items of similar shape and size, for example during coffee bean production processing. While in the drying process, coffee beans are placed on a tarp on the ground and are raked up and put into the hopper. During this raking process, rocks or gravel can easily get mixed in with the coffee beans. These stones need to be sorted out, so they don’t appear with the coffee beans in the final packaging. Stones mixed in with coffee, if they go unnoticed, present sanitary issues and can cause coffee grinders to break.

Placing our cameras and detectors in strategic locations throughout the line will help identify materials based on their SWIR spectra, enabling distinction between coffee beans and stones.

Visible Coffee Beans and Rocks - Difficult to detect difference.

Visible images of rocks & coffee beans, difficult to detect the difference.

C12741-03 Camera clearly identifies rocks.

C12741-03 InGaAs camera, clearly identifies rocks.

Silicon-based image sensors for UV-VIS

For UV-VIS imaging used in food inspection, we offer a selection of CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) image sensors in linear and area arrays. Innovations in CMOS technology have made these image sensors easy to use because all essential signal processing circuits are formed on the sensor chip, and only simple input pulses and a single power supply are needed to operate them.

CMOS products:

CMOS linear image sensors have high sensitivity from UV to the near-infrared region up to 1100 nm. They are available in a variety of pixel configurations (from 128 pixels to 4,096 pixels), sensitivity, and line speeds
CMOS area image sensors are available in various array configurations, ranging from 30 x 30 pixels to 1,280 x 1,024 pixels

In addition to our selection of standard CMOS image sensors, we can customize products to suit specific requirements.

InGaAs detectors and cameras for SWIR imaging

Our line of InGaAs array detectors (InGaAs image sensors) feature:

High sensitivity in the NIR and SWIR regions up to 2.55 µm
Low readout noise
Low dark noise
High-speed response
Built-in CMOS circuits for simple operation and easy signal processing
Linear and area arrays available

InGaAs linear image sensors are suitable for in-line sorting of agricultural products because of their high-speed line rate and high sensitivity. They are available in a variety of cutoff wavelengths, pixel counts, and line readout speeds. Most of our linear image sensors have a metal or ceramic package, but we also offer ones with a flexible plastic cable as a less expensive option.

InGaAs area image sensors are suitable for hyperspectral imaging. High-speed frame rate, low readout noise, and high sensitivity characterize these area arrays. They are available in various cutoff wavelengths, pixel arrays, and frame rates.

Our line of InGaAs cameras feature:

High sensitivity from 950 to 1700 nm
Low readout noise
High dynamic range
USB 3.0
Compact and light body
Custom solutions

InGaAs cameras provide plug-and-play solutions using 1D InGaAs image sensors or 2D InGaAs image sensors. Also they are an easy solution for multispectral/ hyperspectral imaging cameras to be built based on the original camera.

We offer a broad selection of standard InGaAs products, but if they do not fit your requirements exactly, we can offer customized solutions.

Application Article

Photonics Technologies for Agriculture

Professionals in agriculture and food packaging industries know exactly how important it is to analyze, monitor, and inspect food products in the packaging process. Fortunately, many solutions that address this are available using today’s technologies including SWIR, InGaAs, and CCD/CMOS.