Calibration and quality control of cherries by artificial vision

We describe an artificial vision system for the quality control of cherries. We develop image-processing software determining three types of information describing the quality of the fruit: the color as an indicator of ripeness, the presence of defects such as cracking, and the size. The sorting of cherries conditioned by all these criteria is carried out at a high cadence (20 cherries/s). Real-time image processing is then necessary. A simple sensor is used to synchronize the processing and the sorting of cherries. Air actuators are used to eject them after quality control by vision. We present the architecture of the developed system. We show its efficiency through experimental results and we give some perspectives of improvement.