Patent ID: 9228957
Filing Date: 2016-01-05
CPC Classification: B07C,G01N

Claim Text:
1. A high-speed method of inspecting a stream of manufactured parts and sorting the inspected parts, each of the parts having an optically reflective, exterior bottom surface, the method comprising the steps of: providing a conveyor subsystem having a forward reach and a return reach and including at least one traveling carrier; controllably receiving a stream of parts in rapid succession on the at least one traveling carrier at a load station; utilizing the conveyor subsystem to transfer the stream of parts in rapid succession from the load station to a part inspection station at which the exterior bottom surface of each part has a predetermined position and orientation for optical inspection and from the part inspection station to an unload station; illuminating the bottom surface of each moving part through its traveling carrier with radiant energy when the part is located at the inspection station to generate reflected radiation signals which are reflected off the exterior bottom surface of each part and which reflected radiation signals travel through its traveling carrier; forming a bottom image of each illuminated bottom surface from the reflected radiation signals at an imaging location between the forward and return reaches at the inspection station wherein each traveling carrier is made of a material which is substantially transparent to the radiant energy and the reflected radiation signals; detecting the bottom images at the imaging location; processing the detected bottom images to identify parts having an unacceptable defect, wherein the unacceptable defect indicates a part parameter or property which fails to fall within a range of acceptable values; and removing the stream of parts at the unload station after inspection at the inspection station; and directing parts not identified as having an unacceptable defect to an acceptable part area and directing parts identified as having an unacceptable defect to a defective part area whereby the inspected parts are sorted.