ARRANGEMENTS FOR DIGITAL MARKING AND READING OF ITEMS, USEFUL IN RECYCLING

• Main Authors: Rhoads, Geoffrey B, Alattar, Adnan M, Ruotolo, David, Johnson, Brian, Rodriguez, Tony F, Sedighianaraki, Vahid, Alattar, Osama M, Lord, John D, Brunk, Hugh L, Sharma, Ravi K, Filler, Tomas, Holub, Vojtech
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 30.09.2021
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; CONTROL OR REGULATING SYSTEMS IN GENERAL; CONTROLLING; CONVEYING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF SUCH SYSTEMS; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; MONITORING OR TESTING ARRANGEMENTS FOR SUCH SYSTEMS ORELEMENTS; PACKING; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION; PNEUMATIC TUBE CONVEYORS; POSTAL SORTING; REGULATING; SEPARATING SOLIDS FROM SOLIDS; SHOP CONVEYOR SYSTEMS; SORTING; SORTING INDIVIDUAL ARTICLES, OR BULK MATERIAL FIT TO BE SORTEDPIECE-MEAL, e.g. BY PICKING; STORING; TRANSPORT OR STORAGE DEVICES, e.g. CONVEYORS FOR LOADING ORTIPPING; TRANSPORTING

Images depicting items in a waste flow on a conveyor belt are provided to two analysis systems. The first system processes images to decode digital watermark payload data found on certain of the items (e.g., plastic containers). This payload data is used to look up corresponding attribute metadata for the items in a database, such as the type of plastic in each item, and whether the item was used as a food container or not. The second analysis system can be a spectroscopy system that determines the type of plastic in each item by its absorption characteristics. When the two systems conflict in identifying the plastic type, a sorting logic processor applies a rule set to arbitrate the conflict and determine which plastic type is most likely. The item is then sorted into one of several different bins depending on a combination of the final plastic identification, and whether the item was used as a food container or not. A variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.