A machine vision inspector for beer bottle

A machine-vision-based beer bottle inspector is presented. The mechanical structure and electric control system are illustrated in detail. A method based on the histogram of edge points is applied for real-time determination of inspection area. For defect detection of bottle wall and bottle bottom, an algorithm based on local statistical characteristics is proposed. In bottle finish inspection, two artificial neural networks are used for low-level inspection and high-level judgment, respectively. A prototype was developed and experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the inspector. Inspections performed by the prototype have proved the effectiveness and value of proposed algorithms in automatic real-time inspection.