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Industry: Email Alert RSS FeedKeeping the happy nuts together.(AppSnaps)
Sensors Magazine, December, 2004 by Henkel, Stephanie vL
When pistachios are laughing, they're ready to roast, package, and ship to market. They assume that grin when their shells pop open, indicating perfect ripeness. But ~22% clam up and have to be separated from the flow of nuts for different treatment. Accidental mixing can cost processors an estimated $3-$7 million per year. So the USDA Agricultural Research Service's Tom Pearson devised the Pistachio Blaster, an automated sorting system based on impact acoustics. As each nut strikes a polished stainless steel block, it makes a distinctive sound pattern. The little noises are captured as electrical signals by a directional microphone and sent to a PC for conversion into 350 data bits for each nut. A blast of air shunts the closed nuts into the reject bin. The Blaster...
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