A tobacco leaf winnowing apparatus and a control method thereof

Abstract

The application provides a tobacco wind election equipment and a control method thereof, improves the efficiency of stem and thread wind election separation through equipment improvement and parameter optimization, improves the stem and thread separation efficiency and tobacco recycling rate, and realizes the balanced development of tobacco product quality and material consumption. A plurality of temperature and humidity sensors and density sensors are arranged in the feeding vibrating trough. A CCD high-speed camera is arranged on the top of the high-speed belt. The box-type wind election device comprises a wind election box body, an S-shaped air conveying pipeline, a material collecting bin, an air return pipeline and a circulating fan connected in sequence. First and second air inlet valves are arranged on the horizontal air inlet and the vertical air inlet of the wind election box body. The horizontal air inlet and the vertical air inlet are connected with the air outlet pipe of the circulating fan. The air outlet pipe connected with the vertical air inlet is provided with an electric heater. After the collected data obtained by the temperature and humidity sensors, the density sensors and the CCD high-speed camera are processed, the control system controls the air inlet speed of the horizontal air inlet and the vertical air inlet and the rotating speed of the high-speed belt.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of tobacco air separation, and more specifically, to a tobacco air separation device and its control method. Background Technology

[0002] In the cigarette manufacturing process, stem separation is concentrated in two key stages: tobacco processing and packaging. The main separation processes include air separation, vibrating sieving, and composite processes, with air separation being the mainstream process. For example, patent application CN105396782B discloses a high-efficiency tobacco air separation method and equipment. The method uses conveying air to send tobacco materials into the air separation chamber. In the air separation chamber, the tobacco materials are loosened and evenly distributed by a leveling roller. Air separation air is introduced into the air separation chamber, and the tobacco materials undergo suspension air separation to separate impurities. At the same time, the clumps of tobacco materials are suspended on the air leveling plate in the air separation chamber and repeatedly shaken and loosened under the action of upward air separation and gravity.

[0003] It has at least the following drawbacks:

[0004] 1. The equalization roller is in short contact with the tobacco material, making it difficult to achieve the effect of loosening and unpacking the tobacco fibers. After passing through the equalization roller, there are already a lot of clumps of tobacco fibers.

[0005] 2. When the damper opening is small, a large number of blades will be removed; when the damper opening is large, the wet clump removal effect is not good, and intelligent control cannot be achieved.

[0006] 3. The condition of the incoming tobacco materials is unclear, making it difficult to achieve a balance between tobacco loss and purity. Summary of the Invention

[0007] The purpose of this invention is to provide a tobacco shred air separation device and its control method. By improving the equipment and providing a parameter optimization method, the efficiency of stem and stalk air separation is improved, ensuring a balance between tobacco shred loss and purity. The composite process combining image recognition and air separation brings a more accurate and intelligent stem and stalk separation solution to the cigarette industry, improving stem and stalk separation efficiency and tobacco shred recycling rate, and achieving a balanced development of tobacco shred product quality and material consumption.

[0008] The embodiments of the present invention are implemented as follows:

[0009] A tobacco shred air separation device includes a feeding vibrating trough, a high-speed belt, a box-type air separator, and a control system arranged sequentially. Multiple temperature and humidity sensors and density sensors are installed inside the feeding vibrating trough. A tobacco loosening component is installed at the front end of the high-speed belt, and two sets of LED light sources and a CCD high-speed camera are installed at the top of the high-speed belt. The box-type air separator includes an air separator housing, an S-shaped air conveying pipe, a collection bin, a return air pipe, and a circulating fan connected sequentially. The feeding end of the air separator housing is located below the discharge port of the high-speed belt. The air separator housing is equipped with a horizontal air inlet and a vertical air inlet. Each of the straight air inlets is equipped with a first air inlet valve and a second air inlet valve. The horizontal and vertical air inlets are connected to the outlet pipes of the circulating fan. The outlet pipe connected to the vertical air inlet is equipped with an electric heater. The S-shaped air delivery pipeline is also equipped with a makeup air fan, a dehumidifier, and a feeder is inclinedly installed on the top of the collection silo. The feeder is equipped with a compressed air jet device that sprays compressed air towards the bottom of the collection silo. The control system processes the data collected by the temperature and humidity sensor, density sensor, and CCD high-speed camera to control the air intake speed of the horizontal and vertical air inlets and the rotation speed of the high-speed belt.

[0010] As a preferred technical solution, the above-mentioned filament-loosening assembly includes multiple sets of connecting gantry, the two ends of the connecting gantry are connected by a rotating seat, a flattening roller is suspended on the connecting gantry, and a comb tooth is provided on the flattening plate.

[0011] As a preferred technical solution, the two sets of LED light sources mentioned above adopt linear array full-spectrum light sources.

[0012] As a preferred technical solution, a filament-splitting roller is provided at the center of the bend section of the above-mentioned S-shaped air conveying pipeline, and the surface of the filament-splitting roller is provided with filament-splitting teeth distributed in a circumferential array.

[0013] As a preferred technical solution, an electric heater is installed inside the air inlet pipe of the aforementioned vertical air inlet.

[0014] The present invention also provides a control method for a tobacco air separation device, including any of the aforementioned tobacco air separation devices, wherein the control system includes a data acquisition unit, an image processing unit, a data analysis and processing unit, a case clustering unit, a control correction unit, and a PLC control unit;

[0015] The control methods for tobacco air separation equipment include:

[0016] The image processing unit acquires at least the image data after the tobacco is further spread on the high-speed belt, and acquires the image of the current batch based on the image acquired by the CCD high-speed camera. Based on the image, it calculates the average width, length, curl, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the tobacco.

[0017] The data acquisition unit acquires at least the effective tobacco temperature and humidity data, bulk density data, and output data of the image processing unit in the feeding trough, as well as the feeding speed of the high-speed belt, the horizontal air intake speed, the vertical air intake speed, the comprehensive air speed of the S-shaped air delivery pipeline, the power of the circulating fan, and the power of the compressed air jet device.

[0018] The data analysis and processing unit and the case clustering unit acquire the output data from the data acquisition unit, and calculate the output value and the recommended output value based on the output data;

[0019] The control correction unit obtains a correction value based on the calculated output value and the recommended output value according to the weighted synthesis model, and inputs the correction value into the PLC control unit to complete the control.

[0020] As a preferred technical solution, the above-mentioned image processing unit includes:

[0021] The image acquisition module uses a CCD high-speed camera to capture images of the tobacco shreds spread out on the high-speed belt;

[0022] The image preprocessing module preprocesses the acquired images, including image cropping, grayscale conversion, noise removal, and contrast enhancement.

[0023] The feature extraction unit extracts features of tobacco shreds, impurities, and clumps of tobacco shreds based on edge detection combined with a clustering center algorithm.

[0024] The classifier training unit uses a deep learning model to train the classifier. The classifier dataset contains historically labeled tobacco shreds and stems, as well as clumps of tobacco shreds.

[0025] The classification and recognition unit classifies and recognizes the image to be recognized.

[0026] The verification unit verifies the identified structure and calculates the average width, length, curl, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the tobacco shreds.

[0027] As a preferred technical solution, after the data analysis and processing unit obtains the average width, length, curling degree, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the tobacco shreds, it obtains the calculated output values ​​of the feed speed, horizontal air intake speed, and vertical air intake speed of the high-speed belt through statistical verification and correlation maximum value analysis; then, the recommended output value is obtained by the case clustering unit based on the correlation maximum value analysis.

[0028] As a preferred technical solution, the calculation method of the above-mentioned control correction unit includes:

[0029] When both the calculated output value and the recommended output value are within the preset target threshold range, the calculated output value and the recommended output value are imported into the weighted synthesis model to obtain the correction value; when either the calculated output value or the recommended output value is within the target threshold range, the value within the target threshold range is selected as the correction value; when neither the calculated output value nor the recommended output value is within the target threshold range, the median value of the target threshold range is taken as the correction value.

[0030] As a preferred technical solution, the aforementioned PLC control unit accepts correction values ​​and controls the power of the circulating fan, the compressed air jet device, the make-up air fan, the dehumidifier, and the high-speed belt feed speed.

[0031] The beneficial effects of the embodiments of the present invention are:

[0032] 1. The tobacco shred air separation device of the present invention is equipped with a temperature and humidity sensor and a density sensor in the feeding trough. By acquiring the temperature, humidity and density data of the batch of tobacco shreds, it provides control data of wind speed and wind temperature for the horizontal and vertical air inlets of the box-type air separator, thereby avoiding the wet clumps in the tobacco shreds from being sent out of the separation box and causing waste of tobacco materials.

[0033] 2. After the feeding trough, the tobacco material is further spread by a high-speed belt. A CCD high-speed camera captures images of the spread tobacco shreds. After image processing, the average width, length, curl, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the batch of tobacco shreds are measured and calculated. This data provides wind speed control information for the horizontal and vertical air inlets, thus preventing tobacco stems and impurities from being collected in the collection bin due to excessive wind speed, and preventing the tobacco shreds from being sent out of the separation box due to insufficient wind speed. At the same time, the image acquisition data can also provide a reference for the air supply temperature control, avoiding excessive drying of the tobacco shreds and material damage caused by excessive wind speed.

[0034] 3. This control method combines expert opinions and uses case cluster analysis of collected data to obtain recommended values ​​for wind speed and temperature adjustment based on similar historical situations. After correcting the calculated output values ​​with the recommended output values, appropriate horizontal air intake wind speed, vertical air intake wind speed, and temperature are obtained. Attached Figure Description

[0035] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, the accompanying drawings used in the embodiments will be briefly introduced below. It should be understood that the following drawings only show some embodiments of the present invention and should not be regarded as a limitation on the scope. For those skilled in the art, other related drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without creative effort.

[0036] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the tobacco air separation device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention;

[0037] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the S-shaped air delivery pipeline structure according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention;

[0038] Figure 3 This is a schematic diagram of the filament-retaining component structure according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention;

[0039] Figure 4 A schematic diagram of the data processing flow of the control system of the tobacco air separation equipment in Embodiment 2 of the present invention;

[0040] Figure 5 This is a flowchart of the control method for the tobacco air separation equipment according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention.

[0041] Icons: Feed trough 1; Temperature and humidity sensor 11; Density sensor 12; High-speed belt 2; Filament assembly 21; Connecting gantry 211; Rotating seat 212; Leveling roller 213; Comb teeth 214; Cleaning roller 22; LED light source 23; CCD high-speed camera 24; Box-type air separator 3; Air separator box 31; S-shaped air conveying pipeline 32; S-shaped pipe section 321; Extended horizontal pipe section 322; Filament roller 323; Filament teeth 324; Make-up air fan 325; Dehumidifier 326; Collection bin 33; Discharge device 331; Compressed air jet device 332; Return air pipeline 34; Circulating fan 35; Horizontal air inlet 36; Vertical air inlet 37; Screen 38; Electric heater 39;

[0042] Data acquisition unit 41; image processing unit 42; data analysis and processing unit 43; case clustering unit 44; control correction unit 45; PLC control unit 46. Detailed Implementation

[0043] To make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention clearer, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present invention, and not all embodiments. The components of the embodiments of the present invention described and shown in the accompanying drawings can generally be arranged and designed in various different configurations.

[0044] Therefore, the following detailed description of the embodiments of the invention provided in the accompanying drawings is not intended to limit the scope of the claimed invention, but merely to illustrate selected embodiments of the invention. All other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the invention without inventive effort are within the scope of protection of the invention.

[0045] It should be noted that similar labels and letters in the following figures indicate similar items. Therefore, once an item is defined in one figure, it does not need to be further defined and explained in subsequent figures.

[0046] Exemplary embodiments will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, these exemplary embodiments can be implemented in many forms and should not be construed as limited to the examples set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided to make this application more comprehensive and complete, and to fully convey the concept of the exemplary embodiments to those skilled in the art.

[0047] Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics can be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. Numerous specific details are provided in the following description to give a thorough understanding of embodiments of this application. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that the technical solutions of this application can be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or other methods, components, apparatuses, steps, etc., can be employed. In other instances, well-known methods, apparatuses, implementations, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring various aspects of this application.

[0048] The block diagrams shown in the accompanying drawings are merely functional entities and do not necessarily correspond to physically independent entities. That is, these functional entities can be implemented in software, in one or more hardware modules or integrated circuits, or in different network and / or processor devices and / or microcontroller devices.

[0049] The flowcharts shown in the accompanying drawings are merely illustrative and do not necessarily include all content and operations / steps, nor do they necessarily have to be performed in the described order. For example, some operations / steps can be broken down, while others can be combined or partially combined; therefore, the actual execution order may change depending on the specific circumstances.

[0050] First Embodiment

[0051] Please see Figure 1-3 This embodiment provides a tobacco shred air separation device, which includes a feeding vibrating trough 1, a high-speed belt 2, a box-type air separator 3, and a control system arranged sequentially. The feeding vibrating trough 1 is used to output tobacco material to the air separation box for air separation, and also serves to loosen the material and pre-treat the material's feeding form. The high-speed belt 2 is connected to the tail end of the feeding vibrating trough 1. Because its speed is faster than that of the feeding vibrating trough 1, the material is spread out more evenly, making it easier to obtain characteristic data of tobacco shreds and impurities, and improving the stem removal effect of leaf shred air separation. The box-type air separator 3 is used for actual air separation and impurity removal.

[0052] Specifically, multiple temperature and humidity sensors 11 and density sensors 12 are installed inside the feeding trough 1. These sensors can be spaced at equal intervals to obtain the average temperature, humidity, and density of the material. A guide is installed inside the feeding trough 1 to evenly distribute the tobacco material.

[0053] The front section of the high-speed belt 2 is equipped with a tobacco loosening component 21, which further breaks up the wet clumps of tobacco after they arrive at the high-speed belt 2. The tobacco loosening component 21 includes multiple connecting gantry 211s, the two ends of which are connected by a rotating seat 212. A leveling roller 213 is suspended on the connecting gantry 211, and a comb tooth 214 is provided on the leveling plate to organize the material on the high-speed belt 2 into tobacco material of uniform thickness and even distribution.

[0054] The high-speed belt 2 is a belt transmission component. The belt is made of dark blue material to create a strong contrast with the tobacco, making it easier for the image to identify the tobacco and remove impurities. A cleaning roller 22 is also installed at the front end of the high-speed belt 2 to help clean the high-speed belt 2 and ensure the shooting quality.

[0055] Two sets of LED light sources 23 with a single focal point and a set of CCD high-speed cameras 24 are installed at the top of the middle section of the high-speed belt 2 to capture clear images of the materials. The two sets of LED light sources 23 adopt linear array full-spectrum light sources, which use linear array full-spectrum light sources with continuous spectrum, wide wavelength coverage, high and stable color rendering index to replace ordinary LED light sources, improve the imaging effect and contrast of impurities, and enhance the ability to identify impurities.

[0056] After the CCD high-speed camera 24 captures images, the images are transmitted to the advanced image processing unit for image recognition and calculation.

[0057] The box-type air separator 3 includes an air separator box 31 connected in sequence, an S-shaped air delivery pipe 32 located at the top of the air separator box 31, a collection bin 33 located at the end of the extended horizontal pipe section 322 of the S-shaped air delivery pipe, a return air pipe 34 located at the top of the collection bin 33, and a circulating fan 35 connecting the return air pipe 34 and the air inlet of the air separator box.

[0058] The S-shaped air conveying pipe includes an S-shaped pipe section 321 and an extended horizontal pipe section 322. A loosening roller 323 is provided at the center of the bend section of the S-shaped air conveying pipe 32. The surface of the loosening roller 323 is provided with a circumferentially arrayed loosening teeth 324, which further improves the looseness of the tobacco and at the same time provides a barrier for tobacco stems and other impurities.

[0059] The feed end of the air classifier 31 is located below the discharge port of the high-speed belt 2, and adopts a vertical feeding method. The air classifier 31 is provided with a horizontal air inlet 36 and a vertical air inlet 37, wherein the horizontal air inlet 36 is higher than the vertical air inlet 37. The bottom of the vertical air inlet 37 is provided with a multi-layer inclined screen 38, and a separation box is provided at the bottom of the screen 38 for storing the separated tobacco stems and debris. The separation box is located below the vertical air inlet 37.

[0060] A first air inlet valve and a second air inlet valve are provided on the horizontal air inlet 36 and the vertical air inlet 37 respectively, so as to facilitate the control of the air speed of the horizontal air inlet 36 and the vertical air inlet 37. The horizontal air inlet 36 and the vertical air inlet 37 are connected to the air outlet pipe of the circulating fan 35. An electric heater 39 is installed in the air inlet pipe of the vertical air inlet 37 for further drying of wet clumps when the humidity is high.

[0061] Furthermore, in order to better separate wet tobacco clumps, two vertical air inlets can be set up, with the air velocity at the lower end of the screen 38 being higher than that at the higher end of the screen 38. Through secondary treatment, the processing efficiency of wet clumps can be improved.

[0062] The S-shaped air supply duct 32 is also equipped with a makeup air fan 325 and a dehumidifier 326, which are used to supply airflow when the second air inlet valve is opened and to dehumidify when the electric heater 39 is turned on. The makeup air fan 325 is an axial flow fan or a centrifugal fan that can be used as both a makeup air fan and an exhaust fan.

[0063] The top of the collection bin 33 is inclined and equipped with a feeder 331 for guiding tobacco into the collection bin. The feeder 331 is equipped with a compressed air jet device 332 that blows towards the bottom of the collection bin 33 to prevent the return airflow from being blocked.

[0064] The control system processes the data collected by the temperature and humidity sensor 11, density sensor 12 and CCD high-speed camera 24, and controls the air intake speed of the horizontal air inlet 36 and the vertical air inlet 37, the air intake temperature of the vertical air inlet 37 and the rotation speed (feeding speed) of the high-speed belt 2.

[0065] The tobacco air separation equipment in this embodiment operates as follows:

[0066] The average temperature, humidity, and average density of the tobacco shreds were measured at position 1 of the feeding trough; the average width, length, curl, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the further flattened tobacco shreds were measured at position 2 of the high-speed belt.

[0067] The measurement data is transmitted to the control system. After comprehensive calculation and analysis, the operating speed (feeding speed) of the high-speed belt 2, the opening degree of the first air inlet valve and the second air inlet valve (controlling the wind speed of the horizontal air inlet 36 and the vertical air inlet 37), and the heating power of the electric heater 39 (controlling the temperature of the vertical air inlet 37) are controlled.

[0068] For example, when the tobacco shreds at the feeding trough 1 have high moisture content and high density, the control system slows down the running speed of the high-speed belt 2, controls the opening of the first air inlet valve, the second air inlet valve, and the electric heater 39, increases the wind speed and temperature at the vertical air inlet 37, and dries the wet clumps of tobacco shreds that have fallen onto the screen 38 with hot air. The tobacco shreds then enter the S-shaped air conveying pipe 32 for collection under the action of the vertical air intake. Simultaneously, when the second air inlet valve and the electric heater 39 are opened, the corresponding make-up air fan 325 and dehumidifier 326 are activated to prevent the collected tobacco shreds from exceeding the moisture limit.

[0069] When the tobacco shreds at the feeding trough 1 have moderate moisture but high density, the control system controls the high-speed belt 2 to feed normally, and simultaneously controls the opening of the first and second air inlet valves to increase the air velocity at the vertical air inlet 37. A small number of wet tobacco shred clumps, after the first air separation at the horizontal air inlet 36, enter the area between the screen 38 and the horizontal air inlet 36. The vertical airflow at this time helps to dry the wet tobacco shred clumps, thus preventing them from being discharged. When the second air inlet valve opens, the supplementary air fan 325 starts simultaneously.

[0070] When the tobacco shreds at the feeding trough 1 have low moisture content but high density, the control system only opens the first air inlet valve and simultaneously increases the feeding speed of the high-speed belt 2.

[0071] In summary, the tobacco air separation equipment provided in this embodiment is equipped with a temperature and humidity sensor 11 and a density sensor 12 in the feeding trough 1. By acquiring the temperature, humidity and density data of this batch of tobacco, it provides control reference data for wind speed and wind temperature for the horizontal air inlet 36 and vertical air inlet 37 of the box-type air separator 3, thereby preventing wet clumps in the tobacco from being sent out of the separation box, causing waste of tobacco materials, and improving the accuracy of tobacco air separation.

[0072] Second Embodiment

[0073] Please see Figure 4 and 5 Based on the tobacco air separation device in the first embodiment, this embodiment also provides a control method for the tobacco air separation device. The control system includes a data acquisition unit 41, an image processing unit 42, a data analysis and processing unit 43, a case clustering unit 44, a control correction unit 45, and a PLC control unit 46.

[0074] The control methods for tobacco air separation equipment include:

[0075] The image processing unit 42 acquires at least the image data after the tobacco shreds are further spread on the high-speed belt 2, and acquires the image of the current batch based on the image acquired by the CCD high-speed camera 24, and calculates the average width, length, curl, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the tobacco shreds based on the image.

[0076] The image processing unit 42 includes:

[0077] The image acquisition module uses a CCD high-speed camera 24 to capture images of the tobacco shreds spread on the high-speed belt 2.

[0078] The image preprocessing module preprocesses the acquired images, including image cropping, grayscale conversion, noise removal, and contrast enhancement. To improve computation speed, the acquired images are first cropped, obtaining one image within the central matrix area and one image within the edge area for calculation. This allows for the rapid calculation of the average width, length, and curl of the tobacco shreds from the edge area image, while the image within the central matrix area provides data on clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate.

[0079] The feature extraction unit extracts features of tobacco shreds, debris, and clumps of tobacco shreds based on edge detection combined with a clustering center algorithm.

[0080] Tobacco shreds are characterized by their thin, elongated shape, narrow width, relatively long length, and golden, orange, or lemon-yellow color, with smooth edges and a fine texture. Tobacco stems are characterized by their thicker shape, shorter length, bluish-brown or dark gray color, and rougher edges. Clumps of tobacco shreds are characterized by their blocky shape, hollow center, and color matching the tobacco shreds. Therefore, based on binarized color matching and shape matching, the three different types of target objects can be effectively identified.

[0081] The classifier training unit uses a deep learning model to train the classifier. The classifier dataset contains historically labeled tobacco shreds and stems, as well as clumps of tobacco shreds. The classification and recognition unit classifies and recognizes the images to be identified.

[0082] The verification unit verifies the identified tobacco shreds and calculates the average width, length, curl, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the identified tobacco shreds.

[0083] The calculation method for the average width, length, and curl of the tobacco shreds is to obtain the data of a single tobacco shred by cropping the image within the edge range, which can easily obtain the average width, length, and curl of the tobacco shreds.

[0084] The clumping rate is calculated as follows:

[0085] The proportion of clumped tobacco shreds in the overall image captured within the central matrix is ​​calculated to obtain the central clumping rate.

[0086] The area of ​​the extracted central matrix is ​​expanded outward by N annular rectangles of equal size; the weights of the annular rectangles are set sequentially from the inside out, with the weights gradually decreasing, so that the weight of the central matrix range + the weights of the N annular rectangles = 1, and the weight of the central matrix range is greater than 0.6, and the overall clumping rate is calculated.

[0087] The method for calculating uniformity is as follows:

[0088] The images captured within the central matrix range and the images captured within the edge range are obtained and processed into a checkerboard image. The distribution matrix of tobacco shreds, tobacco stems and clumps of tobacco shreds is calculated on the checkerboard grid, thereby calculating the uniformity value of each screenshot. The average value of the uniformity values ​​of the two screenshots is taken to obtain the uniformity evaluation.

[0089] The method for calculating the contamination rate data is as follows:

[0090] Images captured within the central matrix range and images captured within the edge range are obtained. Recognition data for tobacco shreds, tobacco stems, and clumps of tobacco shreds are obtained respectively. The impurity rate data is obtained by dividing the area of ​​the recognized tobacco stems by the area of ​​the tobacco shreds and clumps of tobacco shreds.

[0091] The data acquisition unit 41 acquires at least the effective tobacco temperature and humidity data, bulk density data, and output data of the image processing unit 42 in the feeding trough 1, as well as the feeding speed of the high-speed belt 2, the horizontal air intake speed, the vertical air intake speed, the comprehensive air speed of the S-shaped air conveying pipeline 32, the power of the circulating fan 35, and the power of the compressed air jet device 332.

[0092] The data analysis and processing unit 43 and the case clustering unit 44 acquire the output data of the data acquisition unit 41, and calculate the calculated output value and the recommended output value respectively based on the output data.

[0093] After the data analysis and processing unit 43 obtains the average width, length, curling degree, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the tobacco shreds, it obtains the calculated output values ​​of the feeding speed, horizontal air intake speed, and vertical air intake speed of the high-speed belt 2 through statistical verification and correlation maximum value analysis.

[0094] For example, when the image processing unit detects a high rate of tobacco clumps, the control system slows down the high-speed belt 2 and opens the first air inlet valve, the second air inlet valve, and the electric heater 39. This increases the airflow and temperature at the vertical air inlet 37, drying the wet tobacco clumps that have fallen onto the screen 38. The tobacco then enters the S-shaped air delivery pipe 32 and is collected under the influence of the vertical airflow. Simultaneously, when the second air inlet valve and the electric heater 39 are open, the corresponding supplementary air fan 325 and dehumidifier 326 are activated, preventing the wet tobacco clumps from being rejected by the air separator.

[0095] When the uniformity of the tobacco shreds obtained by the image processing unit is low, the operating speed of the high-speed belt 2 should be appropriately increased, and the outlet speed of the horizontal air inlet 36 and / or the vertical air inlet 37 should be appropriately decreased.

[0096] When the image processing unit obtains a high level of tobacco impurities, the wind speed at the horizontal air inlet should be appropriately reduced, the wind speed at the vertical air inlet should be increased, and the running speed of the high-speed belt and the feed trough should be appropriately slowed down.

[0097] Then, the recommended output value is obtained by analyzing the maximum correlation value based on the case clustering unit 44.

[0098] The control correction unit 45 obtains the correction value based on the calculated output value and the recommended output value according to the weighted synthesis model, and inputs the correction value into the PLC control unit 46 to complete the control.

[0099] The calculation method of the control correction unit 45 includes:

[0100] When both the calculated output value and the recommended output value are within the preset target threshold range, the calculated output value and the recommended output value are imported into the weighted synthesis model to obtain the correction value; when either the calculated output value or the recommended output value is within the target threshold range, the value within the target threshold range is selected as the correction value; when neither the calculated output value nor the recommended output value is within the target threshold range, the median value of the target threshold range is taken as the correction value.

[0101] As a preferred technical solution, the aforementioned PLC control unit 46 receives correction values ​​and controls the power of the circulating fan 35, the compressed air jet device 332, the make-up air fan 325, the dehumidifier 326, the feeding speed of the high-speed belt 2, the electric heater 39, etc.

[0102] In this embodiment, the tobacco material is further flattened by a high-speed belt 2 after feeding into the vibrating trough 1. The flattened tobacco shreds are captured by a CCD high-speed camera. After being identified and calculated by the image processing unit 42, the average width, length, curl, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the batch of tobacco shreds are measured. This data provides wind speed control data for the horizontal air inlet 36 and the vertical air inlet 37, thereby preventing tobacco stems and impurities from being collected in the collection bin 33 due to excessive wind speed, and preventing the tobacco shreds from being sent out of the separation box due to insufficient wind speed. At the same time, the image acquisition data can also provide a reference for the air supply temperature control, avoiding excessive drying of the tobacco shreds and material damage caused by excessive wind speed.

[0103] Meanwhile, the control method provided in this embodiment combines expert opinions, performs case cluster analysis on the collected data, obtains recommended values ​​for wind speed and temperature adjustment based on similar historical situations, and then corrects the output value and recommended output value to obtain appropriate horizontal air intake speed, vertical air intake speed and temperature.

[0104] Those skilled in the art will recognize that the units and algorithm steps of the various examples described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented in electronic hardware, computer software, or a combination of both. To clearly illustrate the interchangeability of hardware and software, the components and steps of the various examples have been generally described in terms of functionality in the foregoing description. Whether these functions are implemented in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Those skilled in the art can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application, but such implementations should not be considered beyond the scope of this invention.

[0105] In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative. For instance, the division of units is only a logical functional division, and in actual implementation, there may be other division methods. For example, multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be ignored or not executed. In addition, the mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed may be indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, or may be electrical, mechanical or other forms of connection.

[0106] The units described as separate components may or may not be physically separate. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the units and algorithm steps of the various examples described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented in electronic hardware, computer software, or a combination of both. To clearly illustrate the interchangeability of hardware and software, the components and steps of the various examples have been generally described in terms of functionality in the foregoing description. Whether these functions are implemented in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Those skilled in the art can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application, but such implementations should not be considered beyond the scope of this invention.

[0107] Furthermore, the functional units in the various embodiments of the present invention can be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit can exist physically separately, or two or more units can be integrated into one unit. The integrated unit can be implemented in hardware or as a software functional unit.

[0108] If the integrated unit is implemented as a software functional unit and sold or used as an independent product, it can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solution of the present invention, in essence, or the part that contributes to the prior art, or all or part of the technical solution, can be embodied in the form of a software product. This computer software product is stored in a storage medium and includes several instructions to cause a computer device (which may be a personal computer, server, or grid device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the methods described in the various embodiments of the present invention. The aforementioned storage medium includes various media capable of storing program code, such as USB flash drives, portable hard drives, read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), magnetic disks, or optical disks.

[0109] Obviously, the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of them. All other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the present invention without inventive effort are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

1. A tobacco shred air separation device, characterized in that, The tobacco shred air separation equipment includes a feeding vibrating trough, a high-speed belt, a box-type air separator, and a control system arranged sequentially. Multiple temperature and humidity sensors and density sensors are installed inside the feeding vibrating trough. A tobacco loosening component is installed at the front end of the high-speed belt, and two sets of LED light sources and a CCD high-speed camera are installed at the top of the high-speed belt. The box-type air separator includes an air separator housing, an S-shaped air conveying pipeline, a collection bin, a return air pipeline, and a circulating fan connected sequentially. The feeding end of the air separator housing is located below the discharge port of the high-speed belt. The air separator housing is equipped with a horizontal air inlet and a vertical air inlet. The horizontal air inlet... The horizontal and vertical air inlets are each equipped with a first air inlet valve and a second air inlet valve. The horizontal and vertical air inlets are connected to the outlet pipe of the circulating fan. The S-shaped air delivery pipeline is also equipped with a makeup air fan and a dehumidifier. The top of the collection silo is inclinedly equipped with a dropper, and the dropper is equipped with a compressed air jet device that sprays compressed air toward the bottom of the collection silo. The control system processes the data collected by the temperature and humidity sensor, density sensor and CCD high-speed camera to control the air intake speed of the horizontal and vertical air inlets and the rotation speed of the high-speed belt.

2. The tobacco shred air separation device according to claim 1, characterized in that, The filament-loosening assembly includes multiple sets of connecting gantry, the two ends of which are connected by rotating seats. A flattening roller is suspended on the connecting gantry, and the flattening roller is provided with comb teeth.

3. The tobacco air separation equipment according to claim 1, characterized in that, Both sets of LED light sources adopt linear array full-spectrum light sources.

4. The tobacco shred air separation device according to claim 1, characterized in that, A filament-splitting roller is provided at the center of the bend section of the S-shaped air delivery pipeline, and the surface of the filament-splitting roller is provided with filament-splitting teeth arranged in a circumferential array.

5. The tobacco shred air separation device according to claim 1, characterized in that, An electric heater is installed inside the air inlet pipe of the vertical air inlet.

6. A control method for a tobacco air separation device, comprising the tobacco air separation device according to any one of claims 1-5, characterized in that, The control system includes a data acquisition unit, an image processing unit, a data analysis and processing unit, a case clustering unit, a control correction unit, and a PLC control unit; The control method for the tobacco air separation equipment includes: The image processing unit acquires at least the image data after the tobacco is further spread on the high-speed belt, and acquires the image of the current batch based on the image captured by the CCD high-speed camera, and calculates the average width, length, curl, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the tobacco based on the image. The data acquisition unit acquires at least the effective tobacco temperature and humidity data, bulk density data, and output data of the image processing unit in the feeding trough, as well as the feeding speed of the high-speed belt, the horizontal air intake speed, the vertical air intake speed, the comprehensive air speed of the S-shaped air delivery pipeline, the power of the circulating fan, and the power of the compressed air jet device. The data analysis and processing unit and the case clustering unit acquire the output data of the data acquisition unit, and calculate the calculated output value and the recommended output value based on the output data; The control correction unit obtains a correction value based on the calculated output value and the recommended output value according to the weighted synthesis model, and inputs the correction value to the PLC control unit to complete the control.

7. The control method for the tobacco air separation equipment according to claim 6, characterized in that, The image processing unit includes: The image acquisition module uses a CCD high-speed camera to capture images of the tobacco shreds spread out on the high-speed belt; The image preprocessing module preprocesses the acquired images, including image cropping, grayscale conversion, noise removal, and contrast enhancement. The feature extraction unit extracts features of tobacco shreds, impurities, and clumps of tobacco shreds based on edge detection combined with a clustering center algorithm. The classifier training unit uses a deep learning model to train the classifier. The classifier dataset contains historically labeled tobacco shreds and stems, as well as clumps of tobacco shreds. The classification and recognition unit classifies and recognizes the image to be recognized. The verification unit verifies the identified structure and calculates the average width, length, curl, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the tobacco shreds.

8. The control method for the tobacco air separation equipment according to claim 6, characterized in that, After the data analysis and processing unit obtains the average width, length, curling degree, clumping rate, uniformity, and impurity rate of the tobacco shreds, it calculates the feed rate, horizontal air intake velocity, and vertical air intake velocity of the high-speed belt through statistical verification and correlation maximum value analysis. Then, the recommended output value is obtained by the case clustering unit based on the correlation maximum value analysis.

9. The control method for the tobacco air separation equipment according to claim 6, characterized in that, The calculation method of the control correction unit includes: When both the calculated output value and the recommended output value are within the preset target threshold range, the calculated output value and the recommended output value are imported into the weighted synthesis model to obtain the correction value; when either the calculated output value or the recommended output value is within the target threshold range, the value within the target threshold range is selected as the correction value; when neither the calculated output value nor the recommended output value is within the target threshold range, the median value of the target threshold range is taken as the correction value.

10. The control method for the tobacco air separation equipment according to claim 6, characterized in that, The PLC control unit receives the correction value and controls the power of the circulating fan, the compressed air jet device, the make-up air fan, the dehumidifier, the high-speed belt feed speed, and the electric heater.

Images