F

At the forefront of

optical sorting
by Masazumi Hara, Technical Division, Satake

he very first optical sorter for the

rice milling industry in Japan was
introduced on a trial basis in the early
1960s. As far as records show, it was
a European sorter of small capacity
with only three channels. This optical
sorter did not become widely used in
the Japanese rice milling industry for
two reasons the purchase and running
costs were high, and the market requirement was low. The 1960s
were a period of very rapid growth in Japan. Demand for rice
exceeded supply, mainly due to poor logistics, and discolored
rice was not an issue at the time. In the late 1970s, the demandand-supply balance of rice was reversed and the supply exceeded
the demand. The Government restricted the use of agrichemicals
and controlled rice production. As a result, areas of fallow paddy
field increased. Grass invaded even areas still under cultivation,
and pests increased, causing rice discoloration. In the meantime,
grass seeds often contaminated harvested rice due to insufficient
weeding. Japanese rice mills began to require optical sorters.
In response to the demand from Japanese rice mills, Satake
started working on the development of optical sorters in 1978 and
released the first one in 1979. It was a 10-channel monochromatic
optical sorter using photo diodes. Subsequent models had
greater and greater capacity, reaching 30 channels by 1981 and
80 channels by 1986. Originally used in large-scale rice mills,
optical sorters are now used by even quite small rice retailers. In
1993, Satake optical sorters obtained a new camera a chargecoupled device (CCD) with near infrared (NIR) capability, which
made it possible to identify and reject tiny specks and inorganic
particles of the same or similar colour to the product rice kernels
and which conventional sorters could not remove. Machine size
was also increased to 160 channels.
In 1994, Japan experienced its worst ever crop of rice, and
decided to import rice. Since this was an emergency measure,
and the diffusion rate of the optical sorters used in the countries
sending the rice was relatively low, the rice imported into Japan
contained a lot of discolored and foreign materials, which did

46 | Milling and Grain

not meet consumer demands in Japan. Rice exporters overseas

who wished to sell rice to Japan introduced optical sorters to
ensure their rice quality met market requirements; those rice
mills inside Japan that milled imported rice did likewise. Indeed,
rice exporters would make the point that a Japanese machine
had sorted their rice, thereby guaranteeing the quality of their
rice. In the same year, the Japanese Food Control Act was
revised and the market demand for quality rice became stronger.

These two events helped the spread of optical sorters in the

rice milling industry. Today, optical sorters sort almost all rice
distributed in Japan, and rice in Japan is safe and reliable, without
contamination by foreign materials such as glass or stones, and
beautifully white.
In recent years, due to the exponential advances made in
information-communication technology (ICT), the performance
of optical sensors has improved and processing units have been
highly integrated and accelerated. It is the home appliance

DON Reduction by Sorting Yield using Full Colour Belt Sorter

DON in wheat kernels before sorting 2.29 ppm
DON in wheat kernels after sorting 0.96 ppm
Sorting Yield : 95.6%

NIV Reduction by Sorting Yield using Full Colour Belt Sorter

NIV in wheat kernels before sorting 1.20 ppm
NIV in wheat kernels after sorting 0.60 ppm
Sorting Yield : 95.6%

DON Reduction by Sorting Yield using Optical Sorter

DON in wheat kernels before sorting 2.29 ppm
DON in wheat kernels after sorting 1.07 ppm
Sorting Yield : 94.4%

Effect of decreasing of NIV using Optical Sorter

NIV in wheat kernels before sorting 1.20 ppm
NIV in wheat kernels after sorting 0.71 ppm
Sorting Yield : 94.4%

industry that is leading technical advancement. Satake adopted

these technologies to optical sorting, making it possible to
provide high performance optical sorters at a relatively low cost.
Moreover, smartification, as it is known, makes it possible to
provide intuitive and user-friendly operating systems and realtime service in optical sorters.

The Satake range of optical sorters

Today, demands for optical sorting are diversified in material

and in variety. Optical sorters are expected to discriminate
defective grains and particles not only by contrast, but also by the
difference in actual colour. Satake have developed optical sorters
that are equipped with full colour cameras to meet customer
demand and in a quest for new applications. Originally for rice,
cereals and beans, the applications are now becoming infinite.
Compared with conventional monochromatic or bichromatic
optical cameras, the full colour camera can gather a large amount
of information, which is better for identifying defectives from
the product, but requires a large data processing capacity and
the skills to determine the threshold (or sensitivity). To solve
difficulties in determining the threshold, it is necessary to install
an easy-to-operate interface to optical sorters.
Satake offers a series of optical sorters, which are fitted with
an easy-to-operate interface, called Satake Smart Sensitivity,
and this software has made it possible to sort a wide range of
materials. By having a variety of optical sorters in response to
diverse market requirements, not only current users but also new

customers in emerging markets can enjoy the benefits of optical

sorting. In addition, those optical sorters can have a real-time
shape sorting function installed which discriminates defectives
not only by the difference in colour, but also by difference in size,
length or ellipticity (or flatness).
Satake offers five types of full colour sorters the RGBS,
REZS, FMS, CS and Evolution RGB series, all of which are of
the chute type. The RGBS is a large-capacity premium series,
which has a robust, enclosed, and hygienic body. It has a high
sorting performance (throughput, efficiency and yield). The
REZS is a middle-capacity and middle call sorter which has
simple mechanisms in a heavy-duty frame. It is open-structured
for greater ease of maintenance. The FMS is a small-capacity,
movable sorter for entry users. It emphasises cost-effectiveness
and usability as well as general versatility. Cost, weight
and productivity are duly considered, and the materials and
processing methods are highly optimized for mass production.
Another premium sorter that Satake has developed is the
Evolution RGB. The difference between the RGBS and the
Evolution RGB is the light source. Whilst the RGBS uses a light
white LED light source, Evolution RGB employs a full color
LED light source, the intensity of which can be readily adjusted.
By adjusting the light intensity properly, output from the full
color camera can be natural like human vision. The FMS and
Evolution RGB series have better access to the optical section for
maintenance, because the front optical module can be turned (in
the Evolution RGB) or lifted (in the FMS series).
April 2015 | 47

Process flow of Satake Smart Sensitivity

Capturing Image of products

Capturing Image of defectives that you

would like to sort

Clicking a button and the software

automatically makes threshold

Left: Colour
distribution
in two
dimensions

Colour
distribution
in three
dimensions and
threshhold

Shape sorting example

Shape sorting example

Normal shaped product

Deformed product

In addition to these 4 chute types, Satake also offer belt type full
colour optical sorters.
DON reduction in wheat flour using optical sorters
A typical fungus causing Fusarium head blight on plants of the
wheat family is Fusarium graminearum and the main toxin this
organism produces is Deoxynivalenol (DON). Fusarium fungus
also produces Nivalenol (NIV), believed to be of stronger acute
toxicity than DON.
It is necessary to reduce DON and NIV to prevent health
damage by removing Fusarium-damaged wheat kernels as well as
by applying proper agrichemicals or treatments.
In 2009, Satake conducted trials to remove Fusarium-damaged
wheat kernels and performed quantitative analyses for DON
and NIV reduction using a full colour belt sorter (Model Name
: CS300) which employed visible light, and an optical sorter
(Model Name: RMGS) which used a near-infrared light range
greater than 1400nm, both of which are made by Satake.
According to the resultant report, it was possible to reduce
DON contamination from 2.29 ppm to 1.1 ppm (the Japanese
provisional standard) and lower by removing Fusariumdamaged wheat kernels from the material wheat kernels using
the aforementioned optical sorters. This method was also able to
reduce NIV levels by 50 to 60 percent from 1.20 ppm.

Chalky wheat kernel sorting

Generally, wheat is distributed to the consumer after it is milled

Normal shaped product

Deformed product

into flour. For this channel of distribution, the major objectives in

sorting are to remove dark and green wheat kernels, skins (bran)
of the same colour as wheat flour, and impurities such as stones
and straw. This application requires large-capacity optical sorters.
But in India, where wheat consumption is the third greatest in
the world, wheat is distributed as grain and consumers tend to
mill the wheat grains into flour at home when they need it. For
this reason, they have very high standards for the appearance of
the wheat kernels. Unwanted chalky kernels will be removed by
optical sorting.
As shown in Figure **, chalky wheat has a similar appearance
to chalky rice. Whilst sound kernels look translucent, chalky
kernels look cloudy due to the loose composition of carbohydrate
(starch cells) in their cores. It is difficult to sort chalky wheat
kernels from sound wheat kernels using a conventional white
light source. To sort chalky wheat kernels from sound wheat
kernels, a special light source of a longer wavelength ranges and
which has relatively high energy is required from among the
visible light wavelength band.

The latest optical sorting technology.

Satake Smart Sensitivity - easy-to-operate interface

As previously described, full colour cameras mounted in
Satake optical sorters can gather a vast amount of colour
information from the three dimensional colour spaces. The
signal processing algorithm must, however, be simple so that

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50 | Milling and Grain

it can process a vast amount of colour information instantly

and in real-time. A traditional monochromatic camera
produces 256 colours. A conventional bichromatic camera
produces 65,536 colours (256 x 256 256 times more than
the monochromatic camera). A full color camera produces
16,777, 216 colours (256 x 256 x 256 65,536 times more
than the monochromatic camera, and 256 times more than the
bichromatic camera).
The interface that Satake recommends is Satake Smart
Sensitivity which can process the data of 16,777, 216 colours
provided by a full color CCD camera instantly and create a
threshold automatically. This system creates an optimum
threshold to discriminate defectives, simply by capturing
images of products and defectives. This system automatically
applies statistical processing based on the colour information
supplied by full colour cameras.
Typical optical sorter applications reject defectives by
contrast or by colour information. Satake has added a new
function to optical sorters to reject defectives by shape
information such as size, length and ellipticity (or flatness).
This algorithm makes it possible to discriminate split or
broken materials or immature kernels, crushed or deformed
materials, as well as impurities which have the same colour
and chemical components but are different in shape from the
products. The latest Evolution RGB boasts a high performance
shape recognition algorithm that can identify every single
piece of the material without reducing throughput.
Optical sorting can sort deformed materials to give a higher
yield compared to other physical sorting equipment, such as
revolving screens etc. This technology opens the possibility to
replace conventional physical cleaning and grading machines
with optical sorters, which are compact, hygienic, maintainable
and economical in operation.

Future perspective

Optical sorters are widely used in the food industry and

on the manufacturing premises of industrial products,
and their applications are wide-ranging. Particularly as a
technology to recover specific materials from batches of
waste materials mixed with various kinds of metals and
plastics, leading toward the establishment of a recyclingoriented society. Mazda and Nissan, two major Japanese
automobile companies, have been using Satake optical
sorters for car bumper recycling since 2003 and 2011,
respectively.
Previously, the sensing technology of optical sorters was
used to measure the external appearance quality of the
objects being sorted, in order to identify and remove defectives
or irregular products. However, demand for measuring
internal quality and to sort by material type is increasing, for
example, waste plastic sorting and agricultural product sorting
measuring specific constituents such as carbohydrate and
protein, functional ingredients and hazardous constituents. It
is expected that the solution to these requirements will involve
optical sorters using infrared rays, X-rays or the Raman
spectrometric method, and hyper spectral cameras which can
detect multiple wavelengths instantaneously.
In the wheat milling industry, there is a demand for optical
sorters which can discriminate and reject Fusarium damaged
wheat kernels efficiently and which can sort wheat kernels
by protein content. Satake is continually developing and
manufacturing quality and highly functional sorting equipment
using state-of-the-art technology to respond to the various
demands of their customers.