Tuesday, October 10, 2006

X-ray system detects tablets in packs at speed

Production line X-ray system 'sees through' blister pack materials and is sensitive enough to detect tablets (and low density pharmaceuticals) moving past at speed on a conveyor belt.
Unitary dose blister packs are produced in their billions. The consequences of a blister compartment without its capsule, tablet or leaflet can not only be a health risk to the patient but is a liability issue for the drug supplier. Fortunately 3DX-RAY has an answer in its X-Line system which, through novel use of advanced line-scan technology is just a fraction of the cost of a conventional X-ray system.

X-Line allows companies to 'see through' a range of blister pack materials and yet is sensitive enough to detect the tablets (and low density pharmaceuticals) even when they are moving past at some speed on a conveyor belt.

It can even detect if the leaflet is present.

A particular advantage of X-rays is their ability to see through aluminium, which is widely used because it is highly inert to medicines and drugs.

This gives it an advantage over many technologies, such as optical, microwave or RF, where the foil appears completely opaque.

X-Line is a fully automated, high speed, in-line inspection tool that is specifically suitable for inspection of smaller items on production lines.

It can resolve details to an accuracy around that of the width of a human hair.

This positional data is fed into a suite of advanced image-processing software that can reliably identify any empty (or part filled) blisters, giving a fully automatic pass / fail decision capability.

Inspection rates of 400 blisters/s are readily achieved.

When used to inspect blister packs in their final packaging, the system is even sensitive enough to check for the presence of the important product instruction leaflet, even when it is packaged and in its box.