SOFTWARE AND TRANSPUTER SYSTEM-DESIGN FOR HIGH-SPEED GRADING OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE

This paper reports some of the work done under a LINK (Design of High Speed Machinery Programme) project aimed at increasing the speed of pr oduce grading. The computer platform was a transputer network with two special purpose hardware units and this paper covers the software sys tem design and the organization of the network topology. The software was designed on a modular basis and each module had facilities for sen ding diagnostic messages, timing sections of code, and sending debuggi ng data through the system. The network topology reflected the flow of produce through the mechanical system and is basically a pipeline arc hitecture with three parallel data streams. Timing requirements are di scussed and results presented showing that the system will allow compl ex processing of data at throughputs of up to 80 objects per second.