Patent ID: 6026686
Filing Date: 2000-02-22
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
An article inspection apparatus comprising:a hitting sound generating device hitting an article to generate a hitting sound;an article identifying device identifying the article based on the hitting sound generated by said hitting sound generating device;a sound detecting device detecting the generated hitting sound;a detected-sound analyzing device analyzing the detected sound;a detected-sound pattern generating device converting the analyzed sound into a pattern;a reference pattern registering device generating and registering a reference detected-sound pattern;a pattern matching device comparing the pattern generated by said detected-sound pattern generating device with the reference detected-sound pattern registered by said reference pattern registering device to determine whether the generated pattern is similar to the reference detected-sound pattern; andsaid detected-sound pattern generating device comprises dividing a plane formed of frequencies and time into a plurality of segments and converting frequency levels of the detected sound which correspond respectively to said segments into numerical values for thereby generating said pattern.