Development of an Optoelectronic Plant for the Analysis and Sorting of Grain Products

Abstract

The grain industry is an important branch of agriculture. It is directly related to the harvesting, transportation, storage and processing of grain. To ensure the high quality of grain bulk products, there are currently used various electrotechnological grain cleaning plants. The most modern and effective are optoelectronic grain sort-ers (photo separators). However, there are a number of technological and structural disadvantages that reduce the efficiency of separating the grain mass into fractions and the performance of photo separators. That is why the problem of increasing the efficiency of optoelectronic installations for sorting agricultural grain products is urgent. (Research purpose) The research purpose is in development of an electrotechnological optoelectronic installation with justification of the parameters and modes of its operation. (Materials and methods) The development of an optoelectronic system for sorting agricultural grain products was carried out in accordance with the theoretical laws of mechanics, electrical engineering and optics, as well as on the basis of the norms and requirements of GOST for grain products. Testing of the efficiency of this unit was carried out on the basis of a laboratory unit in the Kuban State Agrarian University. The reliability of the results is confirmed by the repeated repetition of the conducted studies and the reproducibility of the obtained results, the use of generally accepted methods, devices, and mathematical processing of experimental data. (Results and discussion) The article presents the technological scheme and technical characteristics of the optoelectronic installation for the analysis and sorting of agricultural grain products, and parameters and modes of its operation. The main elements of this installation are: feed conveyors and an electromagnetic drum that provide a piecebypiece supply of seeds to the analysis zone, an optical unit of cameras for obtaining a threedimensional image of seeds, an executive unit for the rejection of grain products (pneumatic ejectors). (Conclusions) An experimental study of the efficiency of the designed installation was carried out. This device can be used for sorting analysis of various grain products: wheat, corn, barley, rice, buckwheat. The results of the study showed the high efficiency of the developed optoelectronic plant for the separation of grain products into fractions (the separation accuracy reaches 98%). The article reveals the possibility of determining phytopathologies by means of color analysis of seed images.