Automatic multi-chamber quality control machine

ADKKI

ADKKI detects live insects in small grain samples taken from a much larger load. Its job is purely diagnostic — nothing more is done with the grain, as the samples are small.

It finds insects, larvae, worms and other small pests in grain. Dead pests in a load are acceptable — the problem is live ones, which multiply fast in the favourable conditions of a grain store and do serious damage to the stock.

So the sample is warmed to wake live but inactive pests. Once awake they can be told apart from grain, dead insects and other objects by their movement — the principle today’s identification methods rely on.

Image processing, recognition and classification have grown fast in recent years — thanks both to more powerful hardware and to new algorithms. Systems thought impossible ten or twenty years ago are now widely used, in industry too.

Image processing extends traditional control and quality-inspection systems and automates work that used to take a lot of skilled labour — especially in industries with irregularly shaped biological products. Agriculture is one of them.

SIA Cerera Solution holds a patent for developing this type of machine. The project was carried out with RTU Design Factory. Earlier attempts to build a design were made together with LLU; ADKKI is a new approach to the task.