Design and Development of an Automatic Color Sorting Machine on Belt Conveyor

Abstract

Automatic color sorting is very much convenient in industry. Color and size are the most important features for accurate classification and sorting of product which can be done by using some optical sensors or analysing their pictures. Manual sorting is the tradition approach that preferred by industries that involves visual inspection performed by human operators. This traditional approach is tedious, time-consuming, slow and non-consistent. Color sorting machines are machines that are used on the production lines in fabric industries and other industries. They separate items by their colors, detecting the colors if things that pass before them and using mechanical or pneumatic ejection devices to divert items whose colors do not fall within the acceptable range. The Color Sorting Machine is used for sorting mainly RGB colors and also colors of different shades. The objects are placed to the conveyor belt. One conveyor belt is used, which is controlled by DC motors. This project consists of conveyors, color sensors, electronic system and motors. The objects are being sorted according to their respective color. As the object is detected using the ultrasonic sensor it sends the signal to the NodeMCU ESP8266. Then the NodeMCU activates the DC motors to start which runs the belt conveyor. The belt conveyor passes the object through the color sensor, where the color of the object is detected and based on its color respective servo motor is used to separate the objects in a particular container. The LCD display is used to show the count of the objects.