Company: Thermo Fisher Scientific

Website: www.thermofisher.com

Technology Snapshot: A new software functionality available as a standard feature in the Thermo Scientific Sentinel multiscan metal detector enhances set-up, making it easier and quicker for food processors to improve inspection performance. The Auto Learn software feature allows users to conduct an additional set-up stage that can be used to capture data on products contaminated with metal foreign objects. This enables fast and easy system calibration that can be optimized for specific applications. 

The Sentinel Auto Learn software from Thermo Fisher Scientific calibrates operation settings by allowing users to conduct product tests with clean products and with products containing likely metal contaminants. A detectability score for each metal type is displayed and operating parameters are automatically set to maximize sensitivity and help reduce false rejects. Before the introduction of Thermo Fisher’s Auto Learn, metal detector set up was limited to the use of only clean samples. For many difficult applications, this process might have taken an expert operator many hours to optimize.  By using data from products with foreign objects affixed, Auto Learn quickly automates set-up for each frequency in minutes. Auto Learn is designed to significantly reduce training time and the need for in-depth metal detection operation knowledge. It maximizes food safety while also reducing or even eliminating the costs associated with false rejects.

“The Multiscan metal detection technology platform in the Sentinel was designed to deliver exceptional sensitivity and the highest probability of detection. With the addition of Auto Learn, the Sentinel metal detectors are now easier to use by operators of any skill level,” said Bob Ries, lead product manager, metal detection and X-ray inspection, Thermo Fisher Scientific. “The detectability score that Auto Learn generates for each type and size of metal, and the resulting operation parameters, eliminates the potentially time-consuming process to tune a particular application. Only a few button touches and product passes are needed from the operator, leaving the rest of the work to the intelligent Sentinel software.”

Auto Learn is now available as a standard feature on all new Sentinel multiscan metal detectors and as an upgrade for existing units.

For more information on the Thermo Scientific Sentinel multiscan metal detector and the Auto Learn feature, please visit http://www.thermofisher.com/sentinel5000.