Seed Coating Inspection Vision System
It’s important to implement a high-quality vision system when inspecting small details on seed coatings, which is critical in detecting harmful substances or materials on the surface of the seed. We understand that it can be difficult to determine the correct machine vision set-up and software needed to promote the best standard to achieve seed coating and more. Our machine vision products and pricing are available and easily accessible to provide direct access to information about this seed coating inspection vision system.
Table of contents
In this application, the customer reached out about their pesticide application needed to capture his crops and the surrounding area with a camera that had enough frames per second (FPS) and megapixels (MP). The cameras were attached to a long beam (arm) which was then attached to the tractor that would drive through the fields. With a higher FPS, this customer will be able to detect small, or big, weeds growing in the different types of crops. With this information, the customer will be able to then trigger his system to spray a pesticide onto the weeds in which are affecting the growth of their crops.
Machine Vision Selection
The first decision to be made in this application is which industrial camera the customer will benefit from the most. We must remember that we follow our customers' recommendations and that the inspection and identification of seeds and their coatings require a higher resolution due to its small figure. It was recommended that you use the ME2P-2621-15U3C camera because with this camera you will have a high enough resolution for the small seed and its coating as well as color to identify different aspects of the coating.
The Seeds will be moving intermittently during the testing period, so the customer needed a camera with a global shutter in addition to a color camera for a clear inspection of the coating and seeds. By doing this, you can be sure the pictures won't be warped. Visit our Knowledge Center to learn more about rolling shutter vs. global shutter and global shutter cameras. The customer will additionally require our machine vision housing as this will be in a humid environment. This will ensure that the camera sensor does not get damaged as our industrial machine vision housings are IP67 rated.
The customer provided the minimum resolution, which was used to calculate the necessary resolution. For this application, a minimum of 5000x4000 pixels were needed, calculated at 3 pixels per smallest detail. The ME2P 2621-15U3C, with its 5120x5120 resolution, is suitable for this application.
Lens Selection
Even with the resolution requirement known, we still need to use our online lens calculator to determine which industrial lens is appropriate for this application. The sensor size of the ME2P-2621-15U3C is 1.1". Based on our earlier computations and the specifications provided by the client, a 12MP macro lens is needed for a field of view of approximately 20x15 mm. The 35mm macro lens is the most suitable lens as it would give you a total field of view of 19.8x14.2mm. When talking with the customer this was sufficient for their set up. The Customer will also need to have a 1mm close up ring that is attached to this set up to get the required FOV. A fantastic option is our 12MP 35MM C-mount lens VA-LCM-12MP-35MM-F2.8-110-MACRO.
Camera Set Up
The client for this inspection application requested a 1-camera configuration that would be attached to a metal beam. The camera is identical to the one discussed in this article and the lens described in the preceding section. This will enable the customer to image the seed coatings on their seeds to inspect if there are any defects/wrongful pattern that they need to fix within their seed. A 4.6-meter USB3 cable was required for this camera, but if your vision system requires other modifications, we can quickly adapt it to meet the demands of your vision application. Lastly this customer needed to have a mounting plate in which would provide the camera and industrial machine vision housing to be attached to their metal beam that they had already made themselves. Please see our page for mounting options as your machine vision set up might differ from the one explained in this article.
Lighting For Weed Inspection
For this weed inspection application, were advised 2 bar lights to make sure that the quality of the image and the coating on the seed was in an environment suitable for imaging. If your application is in a low light scenario there may be a need for other machine vision lighting in which you can get in touch with us at the bottom of the page using our customer support form.
Download the bar light datasheet filling the form below.
Image Processing Software for Pesticide Spray
In some cases, our cameras, lenses and lighting are not enough for specific vision systems. Because our cameras are GenIcam compatible, they can be utilized with a wide range of third-party programs, such as Arm Boards, NI Labview, MvTec Halcon, Cognex Vision Pro, Matlab, and OpenCV. Our free SDK can be used to set the camera parameters and acquire images for initial programming. The software development kit works with ARM platforms, such as the Raspberry Pi and NVIDIA TX series, as well as home and business PCs. Operating systems that are supported are Android, Linux, and Windows.
For the example application above, the customers had used our own software development kit (SDK). For your unique application you may need to use one of our software packages listed at this link here.
Support for Seed Inspection Vision System
Would you like a machine vision specialist to help you build your own vision system for seed detection/seed coating inspection? Please use the form below to contact us, and we will respond as soon as we can. Our team of dedicated sales staff as well as our technical team are available to help you out within 24 hours of any response on our website for your vision needs.
