Patent ID: 7853355

Claim:
An automated medicament dispensing machine for dispensing and counting individual medicaments, comprising: a programmable dispensing control system programmed to control said automated medicament dispensing machine, at least one vial bulk supply bin for storing and dispensing vials; a plurality of medicament supply bins, wherein each medicament supply bin comprises: a dispenser for dispensing medicaments into said vials, and a slide for: imparting rotational spin to round medicaments, and orientating concurrently dropped medicaments side-by-side, a robotic arm, a vial gripper attached to said robotic arm, said vial gripper comprising: a sensor system carried on said vial gripper, said sensor system defining a laminar counting plane through which medicaments fall, said sensor system comprising: an optical emitter for illuminating said laminar counting plane, an optical receiving array with individually monitored pixels, adopted to monitor optical signals generated by said optical emitter that have been reflected off said individual medicaments as they pass through said laminar counting plane, and a digital signal processor positional computing means for analyzing pixel patterns produced by said optical receiving array and for informing said dispensing control system of the correct number of medicaments simultaneously passing through said laminar counting plane wherein said optical emitter and optical receiving array are positioned so that medicaments that fall together are positioned side-by-side with respect to the optical emitter and receiving array and not one in front of the other so as to obscure one of the medicaments.