Patent ID: 7004330

Claim:
A process for sorting watermelons by weight, comprising: placing watermelons at spaced-apart locations on a conveyor belt at a loading station wherein the conveyor belt extends continuously from the loading station to a discharge station and over a scale therebetween; moving the conveyor belt so that watermelons move successively from the loading station over the scale and to the discharge station whereby only one watermelon at a time is over the scale; obtaining a scale weight measurement for each watermelon when it is over the scale on the conveyor belt wherein said scale weight measurement is a combination of downward forces on the conveyor belt produced by the weight of the watermelon over the scale and the weight of adjacent watermelons on the same conveyor belt but not over the scale; computing a weight correction factor for each weighed watermelon using the scale weight measurement of that watermelon and the scale weight measurement of at least one other watermelon adjacent the watermelon being weighed; sorting the watermelons at the discharge station according to a combination of their scale weight measurement and their weight correction factor.