A Proposal for an Optical System Utilizing Two Lighting Methods Combined with an Offset Mirror System Applied to an Automated Quality Inspection System for Glass Bottle Bodies
摘要
External quality inspection systems for consumer products play a critical role, particularly for medical products, processed foods, and beverages. In addition, chemical and biological tests are essential to ensure compliance with standards such as additive concentrations or bacterial contamination during production. In the production line, visual inspection of boxes, bottles, and containers before and after packaging is an essential step. Automated visual inspection requires meticulous design in both hardware (cameras, lighting systems, automated sorting systems) and software (inspection and control algorithms) to achieve optimal performance. For bottled beverages or similar products, inspecting bottle conditions prior to filling and capping is critical. Issues such as dirt, scratches, cracks, uneven material distribution, or the presence of foreign particles must be detected and eliminated before the filling process. To achieve a high defect detection rate and minimize errors, this study proposes an optical system combining two lighting techniques: Bright Field and Dark Field illumination, along with an inclined mirror system. This mirror arrangement enhances the observation area of the cylindrical bottle surface, reducing the number of images needed to cover the entire bottle. As a result, it optimizes the amount of data to be processed and naturally improves the inspection efficiency of the production line. The purpose of this study is to propose a quality inspection method for transparent bottles in production lines, focusing on the stage before liquid filling. Given that the diameters of transparent bottles for biomedical and pharmaceutical products range from a few millimeters (e.g., vaccine vials) to approximately 120 mm (e.g., infusion containers), the research team has concentrated on testing larger-diameter bottles to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.