Automating the visual classification of metal cores

An automatic visual classification system is introduced which provides for measuring the length and diameter of coilform cores and dividing them into 5 different classed in terms of how far their length be from the desired length. This task is fully automated by controlling two STEP motors and by using image processing techniques. The classification procedure is broken into three logical parts, First, cores in the form of randomly stacked bundle are lined up one by one so as to be well captured by a camera. The second part involves capturing core image. Then, it enters the measuring process. Finally, this machine would retain all the information relating to the length. According to the final result, cores are sent to the corresponding bin. This considerably simplifies the selecting task and facilitates a greatly improved reliablity in precision. The average classifying capability is about 2 pieces per second.