Title of Invention	"AN APPARTUS FOR MEASUREMENT OF THE POLISH PERCENTAGE OF RICE"
Abstract	The paddy seed contains a rough outer covering, called husk. The husk accounts for about one-fifth to one-fourth the weight of the Paddy. The inner kernel, called brown rice or dehusked rice, again contains some soft outer layers, jointly called bran/

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FIELD OF INVENTION This invention relates to an apparatus for measurement of the polish percentage of rice. BACKGROUND OF INVENTION 'The paddy seed contains a rough outer covering, called husk. The husk accounts for about one-fifth to one-fourth the weight of the Paddy. The inner kernel, called brown rice or dehusked rice, again contains some soft outer layers, jointly called bran/ It accounts for some 8 to 10% of the brown rice weight, including the small germ (1-2 % by weight) located in one corner. Paddy cannot be directly eaten. The hard woody husk is not edible and must be first removed. A part of the bran (including the germ) also should preferably be removed to make the rice easy to cook and digest. Rice milling is the process of removing the husk and a part of the bran from paddy in order to produce edible rice. The operation of removing bran layer from brown rice is known as polishing/whitening/pearling. This particular operation is very critical in the sense that ultimate milling quality and quantity of rice depends on polishing. Moreover, this operation consumes more energy and causes more breakage of rice. Thus some amount of polishing is essential for easy cooking and storage, although excessive polishing reduces the nutritive value of rice. So polishing process is an important activity in rice milling. The rice out turn depends on the degree of polishing, which is an expression used to indicate the amount of bran removed in the milling process. It is represented in percentage by weight of brown rice removed as a fine powder during polishing. The more brown rice is polished, the less is rice out turn and the less brown rice is polished, more is the out turn. By law in India, the degree of milling is fixed at 4-5%. But in practice, rice is milled as low as 1-2% ("Government Polish") and as high as 8-10%. This practice therefore strongly influences rice out turn. In rice mills, the milling conditions i.e., load applied, time of milling, aperture clearance etc. are adjusted to get the required degree of polish. The total amount of bran removed during milling is first sieved in an 18-mesh sieve and then weighed, from which the degree of polishing is calculated. The exact adjustment required for each paddy variety can only be determined by experiments on that variety in the laboratory. OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to propose an apparatus which measures the polish percentage of rice. DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION According to this invention there is provided an apparatus for measurement of the polish percentage of rice comprising a signal source adapted to direct signals on polished rice contained in a tray, a detector for receiving the signal from said polished rice, a signal conditioning unit connected to said detector, the analog output of said signal conditioning unit being converted into a digital signal using ADC, of a microcontroller. The system for rice polish measurement is microcontroller based and gives the readings directly in terms of polish percentage of rice samples. Prior to the measurement, the system needs calibration for individual rice varieties/type. Reflectance measurement technique is used for the measurement of polish percentage. It consists optical head unit, sample holder, signal processing circuit. The microcontroller unit consists of ADC, microcontroller 8031 and its I/O devices. Specifications; Principle of operation : Photometric measurement Measuring range : 5 to 15% polishing Accuracy : ± 1% of full scale Microcontroller : 8031 Operating temperature : 0 - 50°C Power supply : Mains operated DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION WITH REFERENCE TO ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS: Fig. 1: shows a schematic diagram of the sensor unit of the invented device and the microcontroller Fig. 2: photograph of the invented device. The sensor arrangement is shown in Fig. 1. Specific electronic/electrical components are used in such a way that some of them acts as signal source and the other as signal detector. Referring to Fig. 1, the sensor unit A comprises a signal source 1 and a signal detector 2. A tray 3 holds the sample rice. An array of detectors 4 detects the signal from the sample contained in tray 3. Depending upon the polish percentage of a sample the detector 4 generates analog electrical signal. This electrical signal is processed in the signal conditioning unit 5. The analog output of the signal conditioning unit 5 is converted into digital signal using ADC. The digital data is used in Microcontroller unit 6 for calibration of the system for different varieties and for direct display of polish percentage. WE CLAIM: 1. An apparatus for measurement of the polish percentage of rice comprising a signal source adapted to direct signals on polished rice contained in a tray, a detector for receiving the signal from said polished rice, a signal conditioning unit connected to said detector, the analog output of said signal conditioning unit being converted into a digital signal using ADC, of a microcontroller. 2. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein said signal source is an optical head unit. 3. An apparatus for measurement of the polish percentage of rice substantially as herein described and illustrated.

Documents:

508-del-2002-abstract-07-04-2008.pdf

508-del-2002-abstract.pdf

508-del-2002-claims.pdf

508-del-2002-correspondence others.pdf

508-del-2002-correspondence po.pdf

508-del-2002-correspondence-others-07-04-2008.pdf

508-del-2002-description (complete)-07-04-2008.pdf

508-del-2002-description (complete).pdf

508-del-2002-drawings.pdf

508-del-2002-form-1.pdf

508-del-2002-form-18.pdf

508-del-2002-form-2-07-04-2008.pdf

508-del-2002-form-2.pdf

508-del-2002-form-3-07-04-2008.pdf

508-del-2002-form-3.pdf