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Quality Packaging; Rapid ROI

Machine vision is helping to improve the accuracy of inspection in the food and beverage industry, saving manufacturers time and money...

By Andrea Bertuolo and Marco Diani

January 2003

One company that is helping bring machine vision to the food and beverage industry is EyePro System (Trento, Italy). Established in 1999, EyePro System is a spin-off of an Italian research center working in the field of image processing, speech recognition and microelectronics. The company's work in computer science research, statistical data analysis, pattern recognition and image processing has been translated into the development of automated vision systems for industrial inspection, control and measurement applications.

Engineers at EPS rely on the expertise of their machine vision industry business partners. EPS is a software-oriented company that covers a wide spectrum of applications, including monochrome, color, monochrome linear, color linear, analog and digital. The company realized early on that it needed to partner with machine vision hardware suppliers to bring vision-based solutions to the industrial market.

After reviewing various vendors and solutions, EPS chose Coreco Imaging and the company's exclusive distributor in Italy, ImageS, to help them define the appropriate hardware architecture and supply the right products to solve their customers' problems. ImageS, for which EPS is now an official solution provider, supports customers during all phases of a project, from feasibility analysis to after-sale support.

EyePro System develops two basic systems that are customized according to application requirements: the CIAK Linear Vision System, designed for testing the quality of extruded films, and EyeProCheck. This system incorporates an IC-ASYNC from Coreco Imaging, which integrates four independent, asynchronous frame grabbers on one full-size PCI bus card to inspect the integrity, shape, color, size and position of labels, stamps, marks and expiration dates on bottles and other containers. The system can control fill levels by introducing other inspection modules to detect the presence of impurities and inspect for defects in or improper positioning of corks.