METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING TIRE INFORMATION MARK

Abstract: Tire information marks for denoting tire kind, tire size, etc. formed in a surface of side wall of tire as protrusion or groove having a triangular cross section are optically detected by illuminating the surface of side wall of tire from a first direction substantially perpendicular to the surface of side wall of tire and a second direction inclined with respect to the surface of side wall of tire, and picking up an image of the surface of side wall of tire thus illuminated from the two different directions to derive an image signal. The image signal thus derived is converted into a bivalent signal, and is thinned to produce a mark pattern. Then the mark pattern is compared with a thick standard mark pattern. When a substantial part of the detected mark pattern is included in the standard mark pattern, the detected mark pattern is recognized to be identical with the standard mark pattern.

Description: The present invention generally relates to a technique for detecting automatically characters, numerals and marks engraved in a side wall of tire to derive tire information such as kind, size and shape of tire. Heretofore, in order to classify or identify various tires, an operator reads visually characters, numerals and marks provided on side walls of tires in the form of protrusion or groove, tread patterns or color marks. Hereinafter, these characters, numerals and marks are called tire information marks. The number of sizes, shapes and kinds of tires become very large in accordance with various needs of users. Therefore, the visual classification might cause human errors and labor work of the operator might be severe. Under the above circumstances it has been earnestly desired to develop a method of automatically reading the tire information marks. There have been proposed various methods for detecting automatically the tire information marks. In one method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 63,843/75, a side wall of a tire is illuminated and is optically picked up by a camera head including imaging lens and image sensor, while the tire and camera head are relatively rotated at a constant speed. An image signal supplied from the image sensor is processed to detect the marks. It has been also proposed to provide a bar code of crenelated construction on the side wall of tire and the bar code is mechanically read by means of a bar code reader comprising a limit switch. Further it is also known to apply a label having a bar code printed thereon on the tire and to read the bar code optically. It is further proposed to print marks directly on the tire surface and to read the marks optically. However, all the above explained methods are not satisfactory and have serious drawbacks in the practical viewpoint. For instance, in case of detecting optically the tire information marks engraved on the side wall of tire, it is very difficult to extract only the desired tire information marks, because there are formed on the side wall of tire various characters and marks other than the tire information marks and these undesired characters and marks might cause noise. It should be noted that a position of the tire information marks on tire viewed in a radial direction differs for various kinds of tires and a height of the side wall is also varied in accordance with a width of tire. Moreover, since the tire information marks have the same color as that of a background, an image of the side wall projected upon the image sensor has a very low contrast. Therefore, a photoelectrically converted signal has a very small signal-to-noise ratio. In the method of reading optically the engraved bar code, since the operator could not comprehend the bar code, it is very inconvenient. Further, the mechanical bar code reader might be worn soon. In case of using the bar code label, it is quite cumbersome to apply labels onto respective tires. In the known method of printing the marks on the tire, when the printing is effected prior to the vulcanization, the marks might be degraded during the vulcanization, and even if the printing is carried out after the vulcanization, the printing operation is troublesome and human error might be introduced. When the special ink is used, the printing operation is further cumbersome, and further the special reading apparatus is required. The inventors have studied and analyzed the various methods and found that it is the best to form the tire information marks during the vulcanization and to detect optically the thus formed marks. In the known method of reading optically the tire information marks which are molded in the side wall of tire during the vulcanization, the side wall of tire is illuminated vertically from a direction which is perpendicular to the surface of side wall and an image of the side wall surface is picked up by a television camera. In such a method, when the tire surface has a high reflectance, light reflected by an inclined side of molded mark is not substantially made incident upon the camera, but light reflected by a background (side wall portion) is almost made incident upon the camera, so that it would be possible to obtain an image of the mark having a high contrast. However, in general, the side wall of tire has a very low reflectance and has a scattering property. Therefore, light reflected or scattered by the marks is partially made incident upon the camera and almost all light reflected by the background does not impinge upon the camera. Therefore the contract of the picked-up image is very low and the mark could not be detected accurately. It is also possible to illuminate the side wall of a tire with light from a direction which is inclined or oblique with respect to the surface of side wall and to pick up an image of the side wall from a direction perpendicular to the surface of side wall. Also in this case, the contrast between the mark and background is low and it is difficult to read the marks accurately. EP-A-O 240 078 published on 07.10.87. demonstrates the detection of relief structures on a surface using a single light source inclined at an angle to the surface. The present invention has for its object to provide novel and useful method and apparatus for detecting optically tire information marks formed on a side wall of tire as protrusion or groove in an accurate manner regardless of the reflectance of the side wall, so that it is possible to classify or identify tires in a rapid and accurate manner. According to the invention, a method of detecting optically tire information marks formed on a surface of a side wall of a tire in the form of a Protrusion or recess comprises the steps of; illuminating the side wall of the tire from a first direction substantially perpendicular to the surface of the side wall of the tire and from a second direction inclined with respect to the surface of the side wall of the tire; picking-up an image of the surface of the side wall of the tire by means of an image pick-up device to produce an image signal; and processing the image signal supplied from the image pick-up device to detect the tire information marks. According to further aspect of the present invention, an apparatus for detecting optically tire information marks formed on a surface of a side wall of a tire in the form of a protrusion or recess comprises a first light source arranged above the tire for projecting illumination light from a first direction which is substantially perpendicular to a plane parallel to the surface of the side wall of the tire; a second light source arranged beside the tire for projecting illumination light from a second direction which is inclined with respect to said plane parallel to the surface of the side wall of the tire; means for picking up an image of the side wall of the tire to produce an image signal, said picking up means having an optical axis which extends substantially in parallel with said first direction; and means for processing the image signal to detect the tire information marks. The invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: Figs. 1A to 1D are schematic views explaining the principle of the detecting method according to the invention; Fig. 2 is a schematic view showing a whole construction of an embodiment of the tire information mark detecting apparatus according to the invention; Fig. 3 is a plan view illustrating a tire having tire information marks to be detected by the method according to the invention; Figs. 4A and 4B are perspective cross sectional views depicting embodiments of the tire information mark; Fig. 5 is a schematic plan view showing a direction of illumination; Figs. 6A to 6C are schematic views explaining successive steps for recognizing a detected character; and Figs. 7A and 7B are graphs showing the non-linear gray scale conversion according to the invention. Figs. 1A to 1D are schematic views for explaining the principle of the detecting method according to the invention. In these figures, a tire information mark 2 is formed on a side wall of tire 1 as a protrusion having a triangular cross section. When the surface of side wall of tire 1 has a relatively high reflectance, vertically incident light rays shown by solid lines and reflected by the mark 2 are not made incident upon an image pick-up device 4 such as a television camera, but light rays impinging upon a background 3 are reflected toward the camera 4 as shown in Fig. 1A. As illustrated in Fig. 1B, oblique light rays shown by broken lines are reflected by the mark 2 and background 3 in different directions than a direction to the television camera 4, and thus are not made incident upon the television camera 4. It should be noted that the oblique light rays are made incident exclusively upon the mark 2 only at its one side 2A. Therefore, the other side 2B of the mark 2 is not illuminated by the oblique light rays. As shown in Figs. 1A and 1B, when the side wall of tire 1 which has a high reflectance is illuminated by both the vertical light rays and oblique light rays simultaneously, the oblique light rays are not made incident upon the camera 4 and only a part of the vertically projected light rays which illuminate the background 3 is made incident upon the television camera 4. Therfore, the television camera 4 receives a high contrast image having a dark mark in a bright background. When the side wall of tire 1 has a low reflectance, the vertically projected light rays are scattered by the mark 2 and a part of the light rays is made incident upon the television camera 4 as shown in Fig. 1C. On the contrary, it should be noted that a part of the vertically projected light rays which is reflected by the background 3 toward the television camera 4 is reduced because of scattering. As shown in Fig. 1D, the oblique light rays impinging upon the one side 2A of the mark 2 are also scattered and a small part of the light is reflected by the side 2A toward the television camera 4. The oblique light rays illuminating the background 3 are also scattered thereby and a part of the light is also made incident upon the television camera 4. It should be noted that the other side 2B of the mark 2 is not illuminated by the oblique light rays. According to the invention, as shown in Figs. 1C and 1D, when the side wall of tire 1 which has a low reflectance is illuminated by both the vertical light rays and oblique light rays simultaneously, the contrast of the mark is made between the side of the mark 2B and the rest of the area. The side of the mark 2B is only the dark place which is created by the oblique light and an image of the side wall of tire 1 is picked up by the television camera 4 from a direction perpendicular to the side wall of tire 1. Then an amount of light rays reflected by the mark 2 and impinging upon the television camera 4 is always smaller than an amount of light rays reflected by the background 3 and made incident upon the television camera 4 in regardless to the reflectance of the side wall of tire. In this manner, according to the invention it is possible to pick up the image having a very high contrast, in which the dark image of the mark 2 is embossed in the bright background. According to the invention, when the tire surface has a high reflectance, the contrast is dominantly determined by the vertical illumination light, and when the reflectance of the tire surface is low, the oblique light mainly contributes to the contrast. When the tire surface has an intermediate reflectance value, both the vertical and oblique illumination light rays yield the contrast. Therefore, it is always possible to pick up the image of the side wall of tire having a sufficiently high contrast in regardless to the reflectance of the side wall of tire, and therefore the tire information marks can be detected accurately and rapidly. Fig. 2 is a schematic view showing an embodiment of the tire information mark detecting apparatus according to the invention. A tire 11 to be identified is transported into a mark detecting position by means of a roller conveyor 12 and then is indexed at a given position by a centering device 13. Above the detecting position is arranged a television camera 14. The television camera 14 is supported by a manipulator 15 movably in x, y and z directions mutually perpendicular to each other so that a mutual position of the tire 11 and television camera 14 can be adjusted at will three-dimensionally. Around the camera 14 is arranged a first light source 16 for projecting illumination light vertically onto the side wall of tire. The first light source 16 comprises two circular fluorescent lamps arranged concentrically. There is further provided a second light source 17 for projecting oblique illumination light onto the side wall of tire along an inclined optical axis. In the present embodiment, the second light source 17 comprises a lamp 17A and a flexible light guide device 17B for guiding light rays emitted from the lamp 17A to the tire 11 along the inclined optical axis. The television camera 14 picks up an image of the side wall of the tire 11 to produce an image signal. The image signal is supplied to an image processing device 19 via an amplifier 18. In the image processing device 19, the image signal is converted into a bivalent signal, i.e. black and white signal, is thinned and then is compared with a standard mark pattern which is previously stored in the image processing device 19. There are further provided a monitor 20 for displaying the image signal and various signals during the image processing, and an input device 21 comprising a keyboard. A signal for identifying the tire is generated by the image processing device 19 and is supplied to an output device 22 which further supplies given output signals in accordance with the identifying signal to various devices. Now the operation of the apparatus will be explained. As illustrated in Fig. 3, on the surface of side wall 11A of the tie 11 there are formed tire information marks in the form of characters and numerals which can directly comprehended by the operator. According to the invention, the tire information mark can be formed as a protrusion having a triangular cross section as shown in Fig. 4A or as a V-shaped groove as illustrated in Fig. 4B. The tire information marks can be simply formed during the vulcanization by placing a plate having corresponding tire information marks engraved therein on an inner surface of a mold. The inventors have confirmed experimentally that the triangular protrusion or recess has preferably a base width D of 0.4 to 1.0 mm, particularly 0.4 to 0.8 mm, a height H of 0.4 to 1.4 mm, particularly 0.4 to 0.8 mm, and an apex angle ϑ of 40° to 140°, particularly 55° to 110°. As explained above, according to the invention the illumination light rays are simultaneously made incident upon the side wall of tire from the vertical direction and the oblique direction. It has been further found that an oblique angle α (see Figure. 1B) with respect to a plane parallel to the surface of side wall of tire is preferably set to 25° to 45°, particularly 30° to 40°. Now it is assumed that a character "2" is formed on the surface of the side wall of tire 11A in the form of a triangular protrusion as illustrated in Fig. 5. Further, the oblique illumination light is projected onto the side wall of tire from a direction which makes an angle of about 20° with respect to a horizontal axis H. In this case, an image to be picked up by the television camera 14 has dark portions corresponding not only to the one side of the triangular protrusion of the mark, but also to the other side thereof in dependence upon the mutual angular relation between the direction of the stroke of character and the direction of the oblique illumination light as shown in Fig. 6A. In Fig. 6A, a thick solid line corresponds to a ridge R of the triangular protrusion of the mark. Therefore, when the image signal supplied from the television camera 14 is converted into a bivalent signal and is then subjected to a thinning treatment in the image processing device 19, a mark pattern does not become continuous, but discrete as illustrated in Fig. 6B. According to the invention, such a broken mark pattern P should be recognized as "2". To this end, there is prepared a thick standard pattern S shown in Fig. 6C, and it is checked whether or not the detected mark pattern P is included in the thick standard pattern S. In this case, if these patterns coincide with each other at more than a given percentage, the detected mark P is recognized to be identical with the standard mark S. In this manner, it is possible to recognize with a high reliability characters such as "3", "8" and "B" which are hardly delineated from each other in the known method. It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above mentioned recognition method, but other recognition methods may be adopted. In any method, it is possible to recognize the tire information marks precisely, because the tire information marks can be detected accurately by the method according to the invention. In order to recognize optically the tire information marks in a correct manner, it is preferable that the tire side wall having the tire information marks formed thereon should have a given reflective factor. The tire side wall has a number of projections and depressions in a microscopic sense and its reflective factor is mainly determined by the degree of the roughness. The roughness of the tire side wall surface varies largely due to the manufacturing conditions specific to respective kinds of tires and yield, so that the side wall surface could not always have the given reflective factor for the optical recognition. For instance, if the roughness of tire side wall surface is large, the reflective factor becomes smaller and a contrast of the image of the tire information marks is so decreased that the recognition of the marks becomes extremely difficult. In the image processing device 19, the image signal is processed by considering an average tone of the image. This will be explained in detail hereinafter. The analog image signal is first converted into a digital signal having 256 gray levels. The inventors has experimentally confirmed that an average gray level of the tire information mark signal falls generally within a range from "160" to "250" gray levels, and when the average gray level is within a range from "230" to "250" gray levels, the information marks can be recognized correctly. After the image signal is converted into 256 gray levels, an average gray level is first derived, and then the average gray level is compared with two predetermined reference gray levels. If the average gray level is larger than the upper reference level, it is not necessary to effect gray level conversion, so that the input gray levels are converted into output gray levels in accordance with a uniform conversion characteristic I shown in Fig. 7A. That is to say, the output gray level is always equal to the input gray level. However, if the average gray level is smaller than the upper reference level, the input gray level should be converted non-linearly. When the average gray level is within a range between the upper and lower reference gray levels, the input gray level is converted into the output gray level in accordance with a non-linear conversion characteristic II illustrated in Fig. 7B. When the average gray level is smaller than the lower reference level, the input gray level is converted into the output gray level in accordance with a non-linear conversion characteristic III shown in Fig. 7B. That is to say, when the average gray level falls within the range between the upper and lower reference levels, all input gray levels smaller than a level a₁ are converted into "0" gray level, all input gray levels larger than a level b₁ are converted into "255" gray level, and input gray levels between a₁ and b₁ are converted from "0" gray level to "255" gray level. Similarly, in the non-linear conversion III, only input gray levels between a₂ and b₂ are converted into a full range from "0" gray level to "255" gray level. The values a₁ and a₂ are determined such that the decrease in the average gray level due to the decrease in the reflective factor can be compensated for. The values of b₁ and b₂ are so selected that the contrast between the mark and the background can be improved. By effecting the non-linear gray scale conversion as explained above, it is possible to recognize the tire information marks in a positive and accurate manner without being affected by the large variation in the reflective factor of side wall surfaces of respective tires. The present invention is not limited to the embodiments explained hereinbefore, but many modifications and alternations may be conceived by those skilled in the art within the scope of the invention. For instance, in the above embodiment, the oblique illumination light is made incident upon the tire from the single direction, but the oblique illumination light may be projected from a plurality of different directions. In such a case, the oblique angle α may be different in accordance with different angles β. Moreover, according to the invention, the side wall of tire should be recognized to include a rim of tire. Further, prior to the detection of the tire information marks, the position of the marks on the tire may be first detected. Then, the marks may be easily and rapidly positioned with respect to the television camera. As explained above, in the method according to the invention, since the tire surface is illuminated simultaneously with the vertical and oblique illumination light rays and the image of the side wall of tire is picked up by the television camera from the vertical direction, it is always possible to pick up the image having a very high contrast in regardless to the reflectance of the tire surface, and therefore the tire information marks can be read accurately and rapidly. In this manner, the tire can be recognized and identified in a precise and rapid manner, and as the result thereof the tire can be classified reliably and rapidly.

Claims: A method of detecting optically tire information marks formed on a surface of a side wall (11A) of a tire (11) in the form of a protrusion (2) or recess, comprising the steps of: illuminating the side wall of the tire from a first direction substantially perpendicular to the surface (3) of the side wall of the tire and from a second direction inclined with respect to the surface of the side wall of the tire; picking-up an image of the surface of the side wall of the tire by means of an image pick-up device (4; 14) to produce an image signal; and processing the image signal supplied from the image pick-up device to detect the tire information marks. A method as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that said second direction from which the side wall of the tire is illuminated is inclined with respect to a plane parallel to the surface of the side wall of the tire by an angle of 25°-45°, preferably 30°-40°. A method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, characterized in that said image of the surface of the side wall of the tire is picked up by means of a television camera (4; 14) having an optical axis which extends substantially in parallel with said first direction. A method as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that the surface of the side wall of the tire is illuminated from said first direction by means of a circular light source (16) arranged concentrically with the optical axis of the television camera. A method as claimed in any of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that said tire information mark is formed by a protrusion (2) or recess having a triangular cross section the apex angle of which is 40°-140°, preferably 55°-110°, the height of which is 0.4-1.4 mm, preferably 0.4-0.8 mm, and the base width of which is 0.4-1.0 mm, preferably 0.4-0.8 mm. A method as claimed in any of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that said step of processing the image signal comprises the steps of: converting the image signal into a bivalent signal; thinning the thus converted bivalent signal to derive a mark pattern (P); and comparing the mark pattern with a thick standard mark pattern (S) to derive a percentage of coincidence of the detected mark pattern and the thick standard mark pattern and recognizing the detected mark pattern as being identical with the standard mark pattern if said percentage of coincidence is more than a given value. A method as claimed in claim 6, characterized in that said comparing step includes a step of checking whether or not the mark pattern is included in the thick standard mark pattern. A method as claimed in any of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that said step of processing the image signal comprises the steps of: converting the image signal into digital input gray levels; deriving an average gray level of said input gray levels; comparing said average gray level with at least one predetermined reference gray level; and converting the input gray levels into output gray levels in accordance with a non-linear gray level conversion when the average gray level is smaller than the reference gray level. A method as claimed in claim 8, characterized in that the average gray level is compared with upper and lower reference gray levels, and when the average gray level is higher than the upper reference gray level, the input gray level is converted into the output gray level according to a linear conversion (I), when the average gray level is lower than the upper reference level, but higher than the lower reference level, the input gray level is converted into the output gray level in accordance with a first non-linear conversion (II), and when the average gray level is smaller than the lower reference level, the input gray level is converted into the output gray level in accordance with a second non-linear conversion (III). A method as claimed in claim 9, characterized in that said first non-linear conversion (II) has such a characteristic that all input gray levels smaller than a first value (a₁) are converted into the minimum gray level and all input gray levels higher than a second value (b₁) are converted into the maximum gray level, and said second non-linear conversion (III) has such a characteristic that all input gray levels smaller than a third value (a₂) which is smaller than the first value (a₁) are converted into the minimum gray level and all input gray levels higher than a fourth value (b₂) which is smaller than said second value (b₁) are converted into the maximum gray level. An apparatus for detecting optically tire information marks formed on a surface (11A) of a side wall of a tire (11) in the form of a protrusion (2) or recess, comprising a first light source (16) arranged above the tire for projecting illumination light from a first direction which is substantially perpendicular to a plane parallel to the surface (3) of the side wall of the tire; a second light source (17) arranged beside the tire for projecting illumination light from a second direction which is inclined with respect to said plane parallel to the surface of the side wall of the tire; means (14,15) for picking up an image of the side wall of the tire to produce an image signal, said picking up means having an optical axis which extends substantially in parallel with said first direction; and means (19) for processing the image signal to detect the tire information marks. Apparatus as claimed in claim 11, characterized in that said first light source comprises at least one circular lamp (16) arranged concentrically with the optical axis of said picking up means. Apparatus as claimed in claim 12, characterized in that said circular lamp is a circular fluorescent lamp. Apparatus as claimed in any of claims 11 to 13, characterized in that said second light source (17) comprises a lamp (17A) for emitting light and a flexible light guide device (17B) for guiding the light emitted from the lamp and projecting the light toward the side wall of the tire along said second direction. Apparatus as claimed in any of claims 11 to 14, characterized in that said second direction is inclined with respect to said plane parallel to the surface of the side wall of the tire by an angle of 25°-45°, preferably 30°-40°. Apparatus as claimed in any of claims 11 to 15, characterized in that said picking up means comprises a television camera (14) and a manipulator (15) for supporting the television camera movably three-dimensionally.

Inventors: MARUMOTO, YOSHIO C/O BRIDGESTONE CORPORATION, MIZUNO, TETSUO C/O BRIDGESTONE CORPORATION, YAMADA, KOUJI C/O BRIDGESTONE CORPORATION
Applicants: BRIDGESTONE CORPORATION
Application year: 1987
Main classification: G06K7
IPC codes: B60C13, G06K19, G06K7