Prof. Dr.-Ing.

Längle, Thomas

Filters

Reset filters

Settings
Now showing 1 - 10 of 114
  • Publication
    Sensor-based characterization of construction and demolition waste at high occupancy densities using synthetic training data and deep learning
    ( 2024)
    Kronenwett, Felix
    ;
    Maier, Georg
    ;
    Leiss, Norbert
    ;
    Gruna, Robin
    ;
    Thome, Volker
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    Sensor-based monitoring of construction and demolition waste (CDW) streams plays an important role in recycling (RC). Extracted knowledge about the composition of a material stream helps identifying RC paths, optimizing processing plants and form the basis for sorting. To enable economical use, it is necessary to ensure robust detection of individual objects even with high material throughput. Conventional algorithms struggle with resulting high occupancy densities and object overlap, making deep learning object detection methods more promising. In this study, different deep learning architectures for object detection (Region-based CNN/Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (Faster R-CNN), You only look once (YOLOv3), Single Shot MultiBox Detector (SSD)) are investigated with respect to their suitability for CDW characterization. A mixture of brick and sand-lime brick is considered as an exemplary waste stream. Particular attention is paid to detection performance with increasing occupancy density and particle overlap. A method for the generation of synthetic training images is presented, which avoids time-consuming manual labelling. By testing the models trained on synthetic data on real images, the success of the method is demonstrated. Requirements for synthetic training data composition, potential improvements and simplifications of different architecture approaches are discussed based on the characteristic of the detection task. In addition, the required inference time of the presented models is investigated to ensure their suitability for use under real-time conditions.
  • Publication
    A survey of the state of the art in sensor-based sorting technology and research
    ( 2024)
    Maier, Georg
    ;
    Gruna, Robin
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    ;
    Beyerer, Jürgen
    Sensor-based sorting describes a family of systems that enable the removal of individual objects from a material stream. The technology is widely used in various industries such as agriculture, food, mining, and recycling. Examples of sorting tasks include the removal of fungus-infested grains, the enrichment of copper content in copper mining or the sorting of plastic waste according to the type of plastic. Sorting decisions are made based on information acquired by one or more sensors. A particular strength of the technology is the flexibility in sorting decisions, which is achieved by using various sensors and programming the data analysis. However, a comprehensive understanding of the process is necessary for the development of new sorting systems that can address previously unresolved tasks. This survey is aimed at innovative researchers and practitioners who are unfamiliar with sensor-based sorting or have only encountered certain aspects of the overall process. The references provided serve as starting points for further exploration of specific topics.
  • Publication
    Particle-Specific Deflection Windows for Optical Sorting by Uncertainty Quantification
    ( 2024)
    Reith-Braun, Marcel
    ;
    Liang, Kevin
    ;
    Pfaff, Florian
    ;
    Maier, Georg
    ;
    Gruna, Robin
    ;
    Bauer, Albert
    ;
    Kruggel-Emden, Harald
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    ;
    Beyerer, Jürgen
    ;
    Hanebeck, Uwe D.
    In current state of the art sensor-based sorting systems, the length of the deflection windows, i.e., the period of nozzle activation and the number of nozzles to be activated, is commonly determined solely by the size of the particles. However, this comes at the cost of the sorting process not accounting for model discrepancies between actual and presumed particle motion, as well as for situations where the available information does not allow for precise determination of nozzle activations. To achieve a desired sorting accuracy, in practice, one is therefore usually forced to enlarge the deflection window to a certain degree, which increases the number of falsely co-deflected particles and compressed air consumption. In this paper, we propose incorporating the uncertainty of the prediction of particle motion of each individual particle into the determination of the deflection windows. The method is based on the predictive tracking approach for optical sorting, which tracks the particles while they move toward the nozzle array based on images of an area-scan camera. Given the extracted motion information from the tracking, we propose an approximation for the distribution of arrival time and location of the particle at the nozzle array assuming nearly constant-velocity or nearly constantacceleration particle motion behavior. By evaluating the quantile function of both distributions, we obtain a confidence interval for the arrival time and location based on prediction uncertainty, which we then combine with the particle size to form the final deflection window. We apply our method to a real sorting task using a pilot-scale chute sorter. Our results obtained from extensive sorting trials show that sorting accuracies can be remarkably improved compared with state-of-the-art industrial sorters and enhanced even further compared with predictive tracking while having the potential to reduce compressed air consumption.
  • Publication
    Fusion between Event-Based and Line-Scan Camera for Sensor Based Sorting
    ( 2024)
    Bäcker, Paul
    ;
    Terzer, Nick
    ;
    Maier, Georg
    ;
    Hanebeck, Uwe D.
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    ;
    Beyerer, Jürgen
    In sensor-based sorting systems, there is usually a time delay between the detection and separation of the material stream. This delay is required for the sensor data to be processed, i.e., to identify the objects that should be ejected. In this blind phase, the material stream continues to move. In most current systems, homogeneous movement for all objects is assumed, and actuation is timed accordingly. However, in many cases, this assumption does not hold true, for example, when unknown, foreign materials are present that have varying density and shapes, leading to inaccurate activation of the separation actuators and in turn lower sorting quality. Minimizing the blind phase by reducing the distance between the sensor and the actor is limited by the processing time of the detection process and may lead to interference between actuation and sensing. In this work, we address these issues by using an event-based camera placed between the sensor and actuator stages to track objects during the blind phase with minimal latency and small temporal increments between tracking steps. In our proposed setup, the event-based camera is used exclusively for tracking, while an RGB line-scan camera is used for classification. We propose and evaluate several approaches to combine the information of the two cameras. We benchmark our approach against the traditional method of using a fixed temporal offset by comparing simulated valve activation. Our method shows a drastic improvement in accuracy for our example application, improving the percentage of correctly deflected objects to 99.2% compared to 78.57% without tracking.
  • Publication
    Potential of Deep Learning methods for image processing in sensor-based sorting: data generation, training strategies and model architectures
    ( 2024)
    Kronenwett, Felix
    ;
    Maier, Georg
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    The main component of a sensor-based sorting system is an imaging sensor and the associated data processing unit for detecting and classifying bulk material objects. High occupancy densities and objects with similar appearance lead to increasing problems for conventional image processing algorithms in object and class separation. Therefore, in this article, specialized Deep Learning approaches were applied to two datasets for instance segmentation. Due to the need for a large amount of training data for such models, a method for synthetic training data generation has been developed. Subsequently, established model architectures as well as an own approach specialized for the problem characteristics is presented and compared regarding their detection performance. Finally, the models are evaluated in terms of their speed and therefore their potential use in a sorting system. Our approach more than halves the inference time of the fastest model while achieving the best detection performance.
  • Publication
    Benchmarking a DEM‐CFD Model of an Optical Belt Sorter by Experimental Comparison
    ( 2023)
    Bauer, Albert
    ;
    Maier, Georg
    ;
    Reith-Braun, Marcel
    ;
    Kruggel-Emden, Harald
    ;
    Pfaff, Florian
    ;
    Gruna, Robin
    ;
    Hanebeck, Uwe
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    A DEM-CFD (discrete element method - computational fluid dynamics) model of an optical belt sorter was extensively compared with experiments of a laboratory-scale sorter to assess the model's accuracy. Brick and sand-lime brick were considered as materials. First, the transport characteristics on the conveyor belt, involving mass flow, lateral particle distribution and proximity, were compared. Second, sorting results were benchmarked for varying mixture proportions at differing mass flows. It was found that the numerical model is able to reproduce the experimental results with high accuracy.
  • Publication
    Regression-based Age Prediction of Plastic Waste using Hyperspectral Imaging
    ( 2023)
    Kronenwett, Felix
    ;
    Klingenberg, Pia Charlotte Amaryllis
    ;
    Maier, Georg
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    ;
    Metzsch-Zilligen, Elke
    ;
    Beyerer, Jürgen
    In order to enable high quality recycling of polypropylene (PP) plastic, additional classification and separation into the degree of degradation is necessary. In this study, different PP plastic samples were produced and degraded by multiple extrusion and thermal treatment. Using near infrared spectroscopy, the samples were examined and regression models were trained to predict the degree of aging. The models of the multiple extruded samples showed high accuracy, despite only minor spectral changes. The accuracy of the models of the thermally aged samples varied with the design of the training set due to the non-linear aging process, but showed sufficient accuracy in prediction.
  • Publication
    GridSort: Image-based Optical Bulk Material Sorting Using Convolutional LSTMs
    ( 2023)
    Reith-Braun, Marcel
    ;
    Bauer, Albert
    ;
    Staab, Maximilian
    ;
    Pfaff, Florian
    ;
    Maier, Georg
    ;
    Gruna, Robin
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    ;
    Beyerer, Jürgen
    ;
    Kruggel-Emden, Harald
    ;
    Hanebeck, Uwe D.
    Optical sorters separate particles of different classes by first detecting them while they are transported, e.g., on a conveyor belt, and subsequently bursting out particles of undesired classes using compressed air nozzles. Currently, the most promising results are achieved by predictive tracking, a multitarget tracking approach based on extracted midpoints from area-scan camera images that analyzes the particles’ motion and activates the nozzles accordingly. However, predictive tracking requires expert knowledge for setup and preceding object detection. Moreover, particle shapes are only considered implicitly, and the need to solve an association problem rises the computational complexity of the algorithm. In this paper, we present GridSort, an image-based approach that forecasts the scene at the nozzle array using a convolutional long short-term memory neural network and subsequently extracts nozzle activations, thus circumventing the aforementioned weaknesses. We show how GridSort can be trained in an unsupervised fashion and evaluate it using a coupled discrete element–computational fluid dynamics simulation of an optical sorter. We compare our method with predictive tracking in terms of sorting accuracy and demonstrate that it is an easy-to-apply alternative while achieving state-of-the-art results.
  • Publication
    Sensitivity enhanced glucose sensing by return-path Mueller matrix ellipsometry
    ( 2023)
    Chen, Chia Wei
    ;
    Hartrumpf, Matthias
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    ;
    Beyerer, Jürgen
    Diabetes is a worldwide public health problem. According to the survey of the Robert Koch Institute, in Germany, at least 7.2 percent population (aged between 18 to 79 years) have diabetes. Therefore, the demand for glucose monitoring is increasing, especially for non-invasive glucose monitoring technology. In this work, we proposed a novel method to enhance the sensitivity of glucose monitoring by return-path ellipsometry with a quarter-wave plate and mirror. The coaxial design improves the sensitivity and reduces the complexity of optical system alignment by means of a fixed quarter-wave plate. The proposed system showed higher sensitivity compared to the transmission configuration.
  • Publication
    Improving Accuracy of Optical Sorters Using Closed-Loop Control of Material Recirculation
    ( 2023)
    Vieth, Jonathan
    ;
    Reith-Braun, Marcel
    ;
    Bauer, Albert
    ;
    Pfaff, Florian
    ;
    Maier, Georg
    ;
    Gruna, Robin
    ;
    Längle, Thomas
    ;
    Kruggel-Emden, Harald
    ;
    Hanebeck, Uwe D.
    Optical sorting is a key technology for the circular economy and is widely applied in the food, mineral, and recycling industries. Despite its widespread use, one typically resorts to expensive means of adjusting the accuracy, e.g., by reducing the mass flow or changing mechanical or software parameters, which typically requires manual tuning in a lengthy, iterative process. To circumvent these drawbacks, we propose a new layout for optical sorters along with a controller that allows re-feeding of controlled fractions of the sorted mass flows. To this end, we build a dynamic model of the sorter, analyze its static behavior, and show how material recirculation affects the sorting accuracy. Furthermore, we build a model predictive controller (MPC) employing the model and evaluate the closed-loop sorting system using a coupled discrete element–computational fluid dynamics (DEM-CFD) simulation, demonstrating improved accuracy.