Compact inline process control
with chemical imaging

HSI tech­no­lo­gy needs powerful hard­ware, fast soft­ware and the exper­ti­se to com­bi­ne this into a relia­ble over­all sys­tem. We offer all this so that you can moni­tor the che­mi­cal homo­gen­ei­ty of your pro­ducts inline.

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) combines the advantages of optical spectroscopy and spatially resolved image acquisition

RGB color came­ras are well sui­ted for che­cking exter­nal qua­li­ty fea­tures such as size, shape and color. Howe­ver, the pla­s­tics indus­try must check other qua­li­ty para­me­ters such as the che­mi­cal com­po­si­ti­on and the dis­tri­bu­ti­on of addi­ti­ves. Spec­tro­sco­pic methods can help here. They pro­vi­de infor­ma­ti­on about the che­mi­cal com­po­si­ti­on and phy­si­cal pro­per­ties of a pro­duct. HSI can show what is invi­si­ble to the human eye.

Hyper­spec­tral ima­ging com­pri­ses num­e­rous spec­tral chan­nels cove­ring dif­fe­rent wave­lengths, from ultra­vio­let to long-wave infrared. This tech­no­lo­gy uses the reflec­ti­ve beha­vi­or of a mate­ri­al to mea­su­re and eva­lua­te cer­tain che­mi­cal pro­per­ties with spa­ti­al reso­lu­ti­on, also known as che­mi­cal ima­ging.

HSI camera systems 1

RedEye: HSI NIR came­ra from Inno-Spec. One of seve­ral came­ras that we can use and sel­ect to suit each cus­to­mer project.

Use of hyperspectral imaging offers potential for new applications

Hyper­spec­tral sys­tems pro­vi­de spec­tral data per object pixel and not just mono­chro­me or color values. Depen­ding on the wave­length ran­ge and spec­tro­sco­pic pro­ces­sing, this enables high­ly accu­ra­te color coor­di­na­tes, che­mi­cal mate­ri­al pro­per­ties and lay­er thic­k­ness infor­ma­ti­on. Alt­hough the infor­ma­ti­on out­put is more com­plex, it also offers grea­ter varie­ty and sel­ec­ti­vi­ty for applications.

Objects that look the same can have dif­fe­rent light spec­tra under broad­band illu­mi­na­ti­on due to their che­mi­cal pro­per­ties. Hyper­spec­tral sys­tems have the uni­que abili­ty to distin­gu­ish bet­ween the­se objects, which is not pos­si­ble with other image pro­ces­sing solutions.

Sort­ing and recy­cling pla­s­tics is an important appli­ca­ti­on for hyper­spec­tral sys­tems. HSI can auto­ma­ti­cal­ly sepa­ra­te pla­s­tic parts such as poly­ethy­le­ne and poly­pro­py­le­ne. With the help of color sort­ing and the dif­fe­ren­tia­ti­on of the mole­cu­lar com­po­si­ti­on, the sub­s­tances can be distin­gu­is­hed. This impro­ves the qua­li­ty of the sort­ing process.

Challenges and obstacles

At pre­sent, hyper­spec­tral image pro­ces­sing is not a wide­spread field. This is due to the high cost of hyper­spec­tral tech­no­lo­gy, which repres­ents a major bar­ri­er to ent­ry. The tech­no­lo­gy is also com­plex and requi­res spe­cia­list know­ledge of spec­tro­sco­py. Despi­te some pro­mi­sing appli­ca­ti­ons, it remains an exo­tic disci­pli­ne in image processing.

Hyper­spec­tral came­ra sys­tems pro­du­ce a lar­ge amount of data that must be pro­ces­sed cor­rect­ly. Advan­ced soft­ware algo­rith­ms are requi­red to extra­ct spec­tral infor­ma­ti­on from the noi­se. The pro­ces­sors must have suf­fi­ci­ent power for fast processing.

One of the chal­lenges is the hard­ware, as hyper­spec­tral ima­ging is not com­pa­ti­ble with the LED illu­mi­na­ti­on com­mon­ly used in ima­ging. Halo­gen lamps are requi­red that emit a broad wave­length spec­trum. Sui­ta­ble light­ing is still required.

The need for powerful hyper­spec­tral soft­ware, relia­ble spec­tral data and expe­ri­ence are the reasons why this new tech­no­lo­gy is spre­a­ding rather slowly.

Our expertise - customized inline systems with real-time data processing

Our com­pa­ny spe­cia­li­zes in deve­lo­ping indus­tri­al sys­tem solu­ti­ons that are tail­o­red to spe­ci­fic needs and can be seam­less­ly inte­gra­ted into exis­ting sys­tems. We work with our part­ners to sol­ve the dif­fi­cul­ties and pro­vi­de the neces­sa­ry hard­ware, powerful soft­ware and exper­ti­se to crea­te effec­ti­ve and relia­ble auto­ma­ted visu­al inspec­tion systems.

Our hyper­spec­tral came­ra sys­tems offer pre­cise ima­ging and data acqui­si­ti­on in real time. Tog­e­ther with our part­ners, we offer com­ple­te sys­tems and can draw on the latest light­ing tech­no­lo­gies and came­ras from various manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Our tech­no­lo­gy partner’s soft­ware plat­form is desi­gned for real-time data pro­ces­sing. Among other things, we can deve­lop che­mo­me­tric data models for their appli­ca­ti­on. Data access is pos­si­ble via various inter­faces such as C++ and Python if a stand-alo­ne solu­ti­on is not requi­red. The soft­ware can be inte­gra­ted into hig­her-level sys­tems to pro­vi­de even more powerful functions.

HSI sys­tems are com­plex and requi­re con­sidera­ble invest­ment. Cont­act us so that we can cla­ri­fy tog­e­ther whe­ther HSI tech­no­lo­gy is sui­ta­ble for your task.