Patent ID: 8054086

Claim:
A method for dispensing and detecting solid pharmaceutical articles, the method comprising: forcing an article through a dispensing channel and past a sensor configured and positioned to detect the article passing through the dispensing channel, wherein the article comprises one of the solid pharmaceutical articles; generating a detection signal using the sensor responsive to the article passing through the dispensing channel, wherein the detection signal indicates a time that the article takes to traverse the sensor; determining whether the article is a complete article or an article fragment responsive to a comparison of the time indicated by the detection signal and an article fragment travel time representing an expected travel time for a complete article to traverse the sensor that is determined independent of physical attributes of the solid pharmaceutical article, wherein the article fragment travel time comprises a complete article travel time, representing an expected travel time that is determined independent of physical attributes of the solid pharmaceutical articles, multiplied by a fragment percentage value, wherein the fragment percentage value is configurable and represents a percentage of the article under which the article is considered as an article fragment; comparing the time indicated by the detection signal and the complete article travel time; and altering the complete article travel time responsive to the comparison of the time indicated by the detection signal and the complete article travel time.