Separation of defected products from production line with a robotic arm via image processing methods

Abstract

This study detected the defected chocolate packages by image processing methods and separated them from the conveyor by a robotic arm. In the system, it was assumed that a conveyor belt system was set at the output of the packaging machine. The products transferred from the packaging machine to the conveyor were photographed in real-time from a fixed point with a camera while the conveyor belt was operating. The packages in the images acquired were classified as non-defected / defected. When improperly packaged chocolate is detected, the robot arm separated the product from the conveyor belt. The proposed method can detect the packaging performance of the machine with the camera quality control system and ensure that the necessary improvements can be made depending on the machine's performance. In this way, the performance of the produced packaging machine can be increased. © 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).