The Situation

The manual sorting of dates (fruit sorting) is done to ensure uniform fruit quality, particularly for high-value export markets. Such painstaking sorting demands significant human resources and cost as the flawed dates are visually identified and removed. The high volume of dates and the human error can result in significant quality issues. In addition, date grading quality generally decreases over time.

The Challenge

Demand in the agricultural industry for an efficient date grading process motivated Com-N-Sense to develop a automated date grading system. The challenge Com-N-Sense had to overcome was ensuring repeatable, uniform sorting of dates to consistently meet the product standardization levels required for domestic and international markets.

The Solution

To meet the market’s needs, Com-N-Sense developed an innovative, machine vision-based solution for sorting dates.

While grading equipment to mechanically evaluate size or weight existed,

Com-N-Sense understood that developing an image processing solution would successfully evaluate and simultaneously meet all of the required grading criteria.

Working closely with the industry, Com-N-Sense defined specific sorting criteria and then developed an algorithm to analyze dates based on visual data provided by a photographic system.

Com-N-Sense also developed a mechanism for the dates to reach the cameras in the optimal position for evaluation. Dates are loaded in the machine

, and in accordance with real-time inspection results, are sorted and sent to the relevant packing station.

Com-N-Sense’s fruit sorting solution is an integrated software and hardware system that provides the same evaluation capabilities as a highly skilled employee, but with far greater speed, accuracy, and consistency at a lower cost.

The reliable, high-quality selection of agricultural products by machine vision is a significant improvement over manual selection techniques, assuring quality control and total customer satisfaction. 

The Com-N-Sense fruit sorting solution has been successfully implemented in numerous fruit packing facilities for dates and other agricultural products.

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