Patent ID: 9084714
Filing Date: 2015-07-21
Classification: A61J,G01B,G01C,H04N

Abstract:
1. A device for counting the number of medicines in a medicine packaging envelope which counts the number of medicines sealed in a pouch portion of the medicine packaging envelope, wherein the pouch portion is formed by sealing peripheries of sheets which allow the transmission of near infrared rays therethrough in an overlapping manner, and one of the overlapped sheets includes an information identification portion, the device for counting the number of medicines comprising: an illumination part which is configured to irradiate the near infrared rays toward the medicine packaging envelope from below the medicine packaging envelope arranged at a predetermined height in a state where said one sheet faces downward; first and second imaging parts which are arranged at a position where the near infrared rays which pass through the medicine packaging envelope are received and are configured to image the medicine packaging envelope from different imaging positions; a distance acquisition unit which is configured to acquire distances from the respective imaging positions to the medicine packaging envelope, the medicines therein and the information identification portion thereon by making use of parallax when viewed from the respective imaging positions, based on gray images from the first and second imaging parts, and to set a reference height comprising a vertical height from the focal point of at least one of the first and second imaging parts to the illumination part; an image elimination unit which is configured to eliminate an image of the information identification portion based on the distances, said image elimination of the information identification portion occurring upon a determination by the image elimination unit that the distances of the medicines from the reference height are within the distance of the information identification portion from the reference height; and a medicine counting unit which is configured to count the number of medicines based on the gray images after eliminating the image, wherein the first and second imaging parts include a visible light cut filter in respective light receiving parts thereof, and the visible light cut filters are configured to prevent a reflection light which is formed by the reflection of the visible light on the medicine packaging envelope from being incident on the first and second imaging parts.