The optical sorting machine Sentinel II from Tomra Sorting Food demonstrated its high performance in the tomato selection process in Antena3's famous talk show's science section, live and before an audience. In a second challenge, the Sentinel II was able to separate all types of objects such as wood, packaging tapes, electrical equipment and potatoes, among other objects, achieving 100% detection quality. The guest of the night, Karlos Arguiñano, was very surprised by the precision and speed of the optical sorting machine, and said various times during the test: "That's impressive! It's great!"
Several members of Tomra, including Alejandro Palacios, the sales director of Tomra Sorting Food for Spain and Portugal, Thomas A. Molnar, the Director of Marketing and International Sales of Tomra Sorting, Jorge Garcia and Austin Gilmartin, international technicians of the company, accompanied the Sentinel II to the studios of Antena3 on Tuesday December 12 to carry out the challenges in the famous El Hormiguero program.
The science section of this program, which airs Monday through Thursday on the national Antena3 network, and that is hosted by Marron, is one of its most popular sections. In this section, the Sentinel II, which had been installed on the set, faced its first challenge of the night. "We are going to put green and red tomatoes and it will classify them by color," Marron said. The optical sorting machine separated the red tomatoes from the green tomatoes with maximum precision and at a very high speed in separate trays. Motos, impressed, requested the sequence be repeated in slow motion. "We're going to watch the sequence in slow motion because it's magical. It does it at a very high speed," the presenter stated. "Yes, it detects color in 1 millisecond," Marron said.
The audience was able to see how the machine operated: the tomatoes entered it through a conveyor belt and were scanned by optical sectors that detect their color and separated them in mid air, just before they fell off the conveyor belt. The Sentinel II pushed the unwanted product (green tomatoes) into a second compartment, and allowed the red tomatoes to fall directly onto a tray.
"The machine sees something green? It separates it. It sees something red, it lets it go on," stated Marron. "It doesn't miss anyone," said Motos. The final image spoke for itself. Two trays, full with red tomatoes, the other one with green tomatoes.
The audience was even more surprised when Marron issued a second harder challenge, which would allow the public to get the new science game of El Hormiguero. In this second demonstration, he introduced all kinds of rubbish amongst the tomatoes to see if the machine could still separate them accurately. They added strange elements to the test, such as bodybuilder's tape, wooden blocks, a Rubik's cube, an electric adapter, potatoes, and other stuff. Again, the classification was a resounding success. The machine didn't confuse any of the elements with the tomatoes and placed them in a tray of unwanted product. Everybody was especially impressed when the machine wasn't confused by a potato, of similar size and shape to any tomato.
According to Alejandro Palacios, "this demonstration has allowed people to see firsthand that sensor-based technology is an effective tool, capable of recovering the first quality product and separating the second quality product for later uses, and that is also capable of eliminating foreign material in the process. Our machines increase the profitability and productivity of our customers by ensuring a controllable and consistent product quality at all times. We are proud that El Hormiguero opted for Tomra Sorting Solutions as a leading company in optical selection."
Source: interempresas.net