Patent Application
20090048803
The invention relates to coin handling equipment and, more particularly, equipment for counting coinage and detecting invalid coins.
In Zwieg et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,992,602, coins were discriminated by using an inductive sensor to take three readings as each coin passed through a coin detection station and these readings were compared against prior calibrated limits for the respective denominations. If a coin did not fall within certain specifications it was offsorted.
The optical sensing of coins in coin handling equipment has been known since Zimmermann, U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,144 and Meyer, U.S. Pat. No. 4,249,648. Zimmermann discloses a linear rail sorter with a row of photocells disposed across a coin track. Zimmermann does not disclose repeated measurements of a coin dimension as it passes the array, but suggests that there may have been a single detection of the largest dimension of the coin based on the number of photocells covered by a coin as it passes. Zimmermann does not disclose the details of processing any coin sensor signals derived from its photosensor.
Meyer, U.S. Pat. No. 4,249,648, discloses optical imaging of coins in a bus token collection box in which repeated scanning of chord length of a coin is performed by a 256-element linear light sensing array. Light is emitted through light transmissive walls of a coin chute and received on the other side of the coin chute by the light sensing array. The largest chord length is compared with stored acceptable values in determining whether to accept or reject the coin.
Brandle et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,729,461, assigned to the assignee herein, disclosed a sensor with both optical and inductive sensors at a coin station within a coin sorting apparatus. Although the hybrid sensor was satisfactory for coin discrimination, it had certain drawbacks. It could not discriminate all of the coins in the Euro coin set, nor could it provide a counting accuracy to an error level of no more than 1:10,000, which is required for coin valuation. Another drawback was that coin dust tended to build up on a sapphire window portion of the optical sensor, thereby interfering with operation of the optical sensor. Still another drawback was manufacturing cost.
Therefore, a new coin counting/discrimination sensor is needed to overcome these limitations.
The invention relates to a new sensor for rapidly and accurately identifying coins for valuation.
The sensor includes an optical portion that is spaced from a coin track to prevent dust from coins and other sources from accumulating on parts of the optical portion. To provide accurate imaging of the size of the coin from this position, a telecentric lens is employed for receiving light, so that a portion of each coin passing the optical detector is seen to have an apparent size and configuration independent of a variation in distance of the coin from the telecentric lens.
The sensor also preferably uses a reflective principle so as to avoid having to shine light from a source above a coin moving disk of the prior art. As a result of using the reflective principle, the coin moving disk has been modified by providing a recessed portion to allow the reflective portion of the sensor to be positioned above the coin track but underneath the coin moving disk, which no longer needs to be transparent or semi-transparent. This also allows for a narrowing of the width of certain fins of the coin moving disk which now press down on the outer edges of the coins to hold them on a narrow rail of the coin track in a cantilevered position as they move past the optical sensor.
In the reflective system, a further enhancement is provided by angling the optical beam by an angle of about 5 degrees to prevent reflections and diffused light from entering the sensor. In other embodiments, this angle might range from 2 degrees to 30 degrees.
The sensor utilizes an optical imaging sensor to detect coin size, and also utilizes a core alloy sensor, a surface alloy sensor and an edge alloy/thickness sensor to develop multiple parameters for accepting or rejecting a coin. In addition, this sensor utilizes a Hall effect device for sensing the magnetic properties of a coin.
One object of the present invention is to use an optical coin detection sensor that will count the value of coins at a processing rate up to 4500 coins per minute while reducing the need for maintenance over a period of operation.
Other features include providing coatings on the transparent covers for the optical elements to avoid dust collection and also providing a fan to blow dust off the optical sensor area. The dust prevention features are claimed in copending application of the assignee herein, filed on even date herewith and entitled “Method and System for Dust Prevention on an Optical Coin Detection Sensor.”
While the present invention is disclosed in a preferred embodiment based on a coin handling machine of Brandle et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,729,461, the invention could also be applied as a modification to other types of coin handling machines, including the other prior art described above.
Other objects and advantages of the invention, besides those discussed above, will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from the description of the preferred embodiments which follow. In the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and which illustrate examples of the invention.
Referring to
A sorting disk assembly has a lower sorter plate 12 with coin sensor station 40, an offsort opening 31 and a plurality of sorting openings 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20. There may be as many as ten sorting openings, but only six are illustrated for this embodiment. The first five sorting openings are provided for receiving U.S. denominations of penny, nickel, dime, quarter and dollar. From there, the coins are conveyed by chutes to collection receptacles as is well known in the art. The sixth sorting opening can be arranged to handle half dollar coins or used to offsort all coins not sorted through the first five openings. In some embodiments, as many as nine sizes can be accommodated. It should be noted that although only six sizes are shown, the machine may be required to handle coins with twice that number of specifications. The machine can also be configured to handle the Euro coin sets of the EU countries, as well as coin sets of other countries around the world.
As used herein, the term “sorting opening” or “collection opening” shall be understood to not only include the openings illustrated in the drawings, but also sorting grooves, channels and exits seen in the prior art.
The sorting disk assembly also includes an upper, rotatable, coin moving member 21 with a plurality of fins 22 or fingers which push the coins along a coin sorting path 23 over the sorting openings 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20. The coin moving member is a disk, which along with the fins 22, is made of a light transmissive material, such as acrylic. The coin driving disk may be clear or transparent, or it may be milky in color and translucent.
The fins 22 of this prior art device, also referred to as “webs,” are described in more detail in Adams et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,525,104, issued Jun. 11, 1996. Briefly, they are aligned along radii of the coin moving member 21, and have a length equal to about the last 30% of the radius from the center of the circular coin moving member 21.
A rail formed by a thin, flexible strip of metal (not shown) is installed in slots 27 to act as a reference edge against which the coins are aligned in a single file for movement along the coin sorting path 23. As the coins are moved clockwise along the coin sorting path 23 by the webs or fingers 22, the coins drop through the sorting openings 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20. according to size, with the smallest size coin dropping through the first opening 15. As they drop through the sorting openings, the coins are sensed by optical sensors in the form of light emitting diodes (LEDs) (not shown) and optical detectors (not shown) in the form of phototransistors, one emitter and detector per opening. The photo emitters are mounted outside the barriers 25 seen in
As coins come into the sorting disk assembly 11, they first pass a coin sensor station 40 with both optical and inductive sensors for detecting invalid coins. Invalid coins are off-sorted through an offsort opening 31 with the assistance of a solenoid-driven coin ejector mechanism 32 having a shaft with a semicircular section having a flat on one side, which when rotated to the semicircular side, directs a coin to an offsort transition area 48 and eventually to an offsort opening 31 that is located inward of the coin track 23.
The coin sensor station 40 includes a coin track insert 41 which is part of a coin sensor assembly housed in housing 52. This housing contains a circuit module (not seen) for processing signals from the sensors as more particularly described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,729,461.
Under the coin track are two inductive sensors. One sensor is for sensing the alloy content of the core of the coin, and another sensor is for sensing the alloy content of the surface of the coin. This is especially useful for coins of bimetal clad construction. The two inductive sensors are located on opposite sides of a light transmissive, sapphire window element 49.
The coin track insert 41 is disposed next to a curved rail (not shown) which along with edge sensor housing 45 (
A housing shroud 50 is positioned over the window element 49, and this shroud 50 contains an optical source provided by a staggered array of light emitting diodes (LED's) for beaming down on the coin track insert 41 and illuminating the edges of the coins 14 as they pass by (the coins themselves block the optical waves from passing through). A krypton lamp can be inserted among the LED's to provide suitable light waves in the infrared range of frequencies. The optical waves generated by the light source may be in the visible spectrum or outside the visible spectrum, such as in the infrared spectrum. In any event, the terms “light” and “optical waves” shall be understood to cover both visible and invisible optical waves.
The housing shroud 50 is supported by an upright post member 51 of rectangular cross section. The post member 51 is positioned just outside the coin track 23, so as to allow the illumination source to extend across the coin sorting path 23 and to be positioned directly above the window 49.
Referring now to
The new machine 60 is provided in two embodiments, one with sorting openings like the openings 15-20 and another with only a single coin collection opening similar to the largest of the sorting openings 20 seen in
The present invention is also applicable to an embodiment having coin sorting openings 15-20, either with or without coin detectors at the openings 15-20. In either embodiment, the plane of the sorting plate 62, and thus, the coin track 63, can either be horizontal or angled from horizontal by an amount no greater than thirty degrees, and this shall encompassed by the term “substantially horizontal” in relation to the coin track 63.
The coin sensor assembly 67 will detect a size of an individual coin 14 in a plurality of coins being moved within a coin handling machine 60 and will also detect and offsort invalid coins moving through the coin handling machine 60. The coin handling machine 60 has a base member 61 for supporting a sorting plate 62 having a coin track 63 passing along an outside reference edge 64, 65, 66 for the coins that is formed by base member arcuate portion 64, an edge sensor assembly 65 and an upstanding rail 66. Some additional offsorting slots 68, 69 and 70 have been provided for coins not in position along the reference edge. A coin sensor assembly 67 now includes a reflective-type optical sensor and is positioned to the inside of a coin track 63, ahead of the coin sorting slots (not seen in
In an alternative embodiment, the reflector 86, 87 can be provided by a reflective strip of material in cavity 72 seen in
The feeding disk 11, in conjunction with features of the sorting assembly, feed the coins onto the coin track 63 in a single layer and in a single file in a manner known in the prior art.
This has the effect of tipping up the inside edges of the coins 14 off the coin track 63, as seen in
The machine 60 has an offsorting arrangement including an offsorting slot 76, a deflector 77 and a solenoid-driven coin diverter 74, all of which are more fully described in a copending U.S. application filed on even date herewith, and entitled “Method and Apparatus for Offsorting Coins in a Coin Handling Machine,” the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. This is for offsorting coins that are detected as invalid by the coin sensor assembly 67.
The coin track 63 is elevated above the lower transparent cover 83 by a spacing in a range from 0.1 cm to about 5 cm. The reflector 86, 87 is spaced above the coin track 63 in a range from 2.5 cm to about 7.5 cm. This spacing aids the prevention of coin dust on the coin track 63.
Besides the coin track 63, other elements of the coin dust prevention system include upper and lower spaced apart transparent optical elements for illuminating a portion of a coin as a plurality of coins move along a coin track in single file. In a more particular feature of the coin dust prevention system that the lower optical element provides for transmission and reception of illumination to and from the coin 14, while the other element 86, 87 provides for optical reflection. It is a more particular feature illustrated in
The details of the optical sensor and detector assembly 90 are illustrated in
As seen in
Referring to
The optical sensor and detector assembly 90 is a customized version of a sensor available under the trade name “Parcon” from Baumer Electric AG, Frauenfeld, Switzerland. The sensor produces an almost parallel IR beam, that leaves the sensor, is reflected by a reflector and comes back to the sensor almost parallel. It is then focused on a detector in the form of a linear diode array with 128 pixels. The efficiency of the reflector is such that illumination times of less than 0.1 ms are achievable. A microelectronic CPU 111 reads through all the pixels and then determines the edge of the object. It also performs some interpolation between pixels to get a higher resolution. Nominal resolution is 1 pixel which equals 0.2 mm in distance. Interpolation within ½-¼ pixel is possible which means a resolution in the range of 0.1-0.05 mm.
There are two definitions of system speed for this sensor:
When the coin passes the sensor 90 the maximum value determines the coin diameter. The sensor 90 is enough to capture the maximum diameter or within an allowable tolerance.
As seen in
The first data packet 100 (
This sensor concept acquires only a minimum of coin data that are necessary to assess a coin. Even at maximum speed of 3 m/s it works well using an asynchronous serial link at a data rate of 115.2 kHz. Readings of a center part and an outer ring for a possible 2 Euro and 1 Euro coin are taken, and furthermore two additional items information of the coin are taken with the Hall effect sensor. This should help to identify and offsort counterfeit coins. The concept is optimized relating to constant readings per coin and the asynchronous serial link of 115.2 kBaud.
The details of the optical detector circuit board 95 are shown in
Referring next to
As represented by process block 134, a matrix of data structures representing the sixteen (16) stations (coin denomination/alloy specifications) with five sensors each is checked to see if any station has been cleared during the calibration routine, meaning that it is not in use as represented by zeroes in its five sensor data locations in the matrix. Also, each sensor is checked within each station to see if it should be “ON” or “OFF”.
Then, a microelectronic CPU in the main controller 120 executes instructions represented by process block 136 to set up acceptance test limits for each coin denomination/alloy specification for each sensor that is “ON”, including size, surface alloy, core alloy and edge thickness. This allows the operator to adjust coin sensitivity without changing original calibration values.
Where a parameter, such as coin size or edge thickness has a single value, limits can be set up by using the sensitivity settings to determine a range plus (+) and minus (−) from a single average value calculated for a specific coin denomination and alloy specification based on a thirty-coin sample run. In the case of two-variable parameters, represented by core alloy composition and surface alloy composition, a “least squares” method is used to fit a curve to the two-dimensional plot of data points for a calibration run of 32 coins. The curve has a slope, A, an axis-intercept B, and a Δ factor according to the following equations:
A=(n*Σx*y−(Σx)*(Σy))/Δ) 1)
B=((Σx*x)*(Σy)−(Σx)*(Σx*y))/Δ 2)
Δ=n*Σx*x−(Σx)2 3)
When thirty-two readings of voltage and frequency for a surface alloy, for example, are plotted on an x-y graph, it produces a field of points. Using the above equations, a curve is determined for use as baseline for calculating a lower acceptance limit and an upper acceptance limit, as represented by process block 136. The acceptance test limits in the y-direction become a range of values above and below this curve based on the sensitivity settings entered by the operator and read in input block 131. The acceptance test limits in the x-direction are limited by the end points of the curve.
After the acceptance test limits are set for up to sixteen denomination/alloy specifications, instructions are executed as represented by decision block 137 to determine whether the calibration mode has been selected. If the answer is “YES”, the calibration routine represented by process block 138 and
Referring next to
As represented by process block 146, the machine controller 120 then calculates the average value for thirty-two (32) coins for the single-dimension value of coin size, such as diameter. Next, it proceeds as represented by process block 147 to calculate a cluster of thirty-two values received from the “core alloy” sensor. Because this sensor generates data for both voltage magnitude and frequency, a “least squares” method is used to fit a curve to the two-dimensional plot of data points. The curve has a slope, A, an axis-intercept, B, and a Δ factor as described by equations 1), 2) and 3) mentioned above.
When thirty-two readings of voltage and frequency for a “surface alloy,” for example, are plotted on an x-y graph, it produces a field of points. Using the above equations, a curve is determined for use as baseline for calculating a lower acceptance limit and an upper acceptance limit. To provide a better set of data for use with the least squares algorithm, a clustered values algorithm is also applied to the data. The resulting data for each denomination/alloy specification is stored in single data structure to provide faster execution during coin detection operations.
The above procedure for core alloy composition is also applied to data for surface alloy composition based on a calibration run of thirty-two coins, and this is represented by process block 147a.
In this case, there are a second set of core and surface readings that are processed, as represented by process blocks 148 and 148a.
Then, as represented by process block 149, an average value is calculated from thirty-two readings for edge thickness, and similarly an average value is calculated for thirty-two readings of four Hall sensor values and a peak Hall sensor value.
As represented by process block 150, a CPU in the machine controller 120 then executes program instructions to confirm that each item of coin data is within four (4) standard deviations of an average value before the calibration is confirmed. If the calibration is not confirmed, a “recalibration” message is generated. After the execution of block 150, the routine is exited to return to the main/startup loop of
Referring back to
Next, as represented by decision block 156 in
From this it can be understood how data from the various sensors in the sensor module assembly 67 are used to identifying the coin denomination by coin size and to identify invalid coins for offsorting. The optical imaging and coin discrimination sensors are housed in a single coin sensor assembly 67 which can handle coins fed at rates from 3000 coins per minute up to 4500 per minute past the sensor module assembly 67.
This has been a description of preferred embodiments of the invention. Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that modifications might be made while still coming within the scope and spirit of the present invention as will become apparent from the appended claims.
