Protemp Group of Companies

Date:          5 January 2010
Publication: New Straits TImes

SORTING out items based on shape, colour and size is indeed tiring, especially for a human being. But now, with the help of the technology, it has become easy and work completed at a higher rate.

A student of Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) from the Faculty of Electronics and Computer Engineering, William Tam has recently done the university proud through his invention, Fully Automatic Sorting Machine using USB camera, which won the Silver Medal in the 20th International Invention, Innovation and Technology Exhibition (ITEX) 2009.

"The idea behind this invention is based upon the stigma that people are not reliable inspectors - human beings have limited attention span; they easily get tired and distracted," Tam said.

He said imagine the tedious procedure a worker has to go through sorting out a bunch of rubber bands according to their colours, sorting nuts and screws according to specified sizes, or even sorting palm oil fruits according to their grades (taking into account the shape, colour and size).

The fully automatic sorting machine using USB camera presents the idea of machine vision in a simplified manner, which is reachable to the general audience.

Machine vision is a subfield of engineering of integrated mechanical-optical-electronic-software systems for examining natural objects and materials, human artifacts and manufacturing processes.

It is also used to control machines used in manufacturing.

"Currently, some machine vision companies are leveraging their expertise to serve the solar cell and panel industry.

"Because solar cells are semiconductor devices, they share many of the same processing and manufacturing techniques as other semiconductor devices," Tam said.

He said machine vision has also made its way in automobile assembly with vision guided robotics, fully robust and capable of handling an instable and variable operating environment.

"When an object is loaded into this sorting machine, an optical sensor would signal the actuator to start the process of unloading an object.

"The USB camera would then capture the image of the particular object and would thereafter send the captured image to a computer via a USB cable," he said.

Labview programme is utilised to analyse the image and perform the sorting operation. A cycle is completed once the index plate collects the object delivered by the loader.

A unique feature in this sorting machine is the SMS alert system where an operator handling the sorting machine could send an alert signal to a remote location.

"Operators handling this machine can easily alert supervisors in case of machine problems or other emergencies by just selecting SMS alert in the control panel," he said.

Another interesting feature is that data are collected and displayed on-screen concurrently with the sorting process where users can view the statistics (current number of objects, percentage and pie chart) according to specified category.