Beside the own Know How ruhlamat bank on the technology of Omron in the optical checking of smart cards and passports.

In close co-operation with ruhlamat, Omron have been developing Xpectia, an authentic-colour image processing system with guaranteed 100% checking. Thanks to the greatest possible precision and fastest possible software processing, this system can easily keep pace with the rising production speeds in the smart card and passport production sector.

As well as the perfect production of smart cards and ID cards and passports, the subsequent optical quality control has a very important part to play. Information on cards or in passports which is incorrect, or even missing, is absolutely unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs. Xpectia is the reliable aid needed to identify any errors like this, and so allow the item concerned to be screened out and removed.

Focus in the development of Xpectia was on solving and circumventing the problems which can arise due to different character sets or quality differences being used when cards or passports are being printed. This was achieved with the introduction of a check algorithm for text identification (OCR – Optical Character Recognition), which makes it possible for new font stocks to be read in effectively and even partly automatically. A much faster reading speed and genuine-colour image processing are additional criteria which make Xpectia a system with even more reliable measurement results. With the shortest possible checking times, both monochrome and colour cameras are now available, with resolutions of up to 5 Megapixels, which means that even very small objects can be reliably checked and accurately measured.

The ease of handling Xpectia, thanks to its Windows-based software control and an individually adaptable user interface, is precisely what the machine operators need in order to display only the parameters which are of relevance to their purposes.

For ruhlamat, this technological development represents another stride forwards in their co-operation with Omron, a relationship which has now lasted more than 10 years. As well as the innovative Xpectia, Omron also provide programmable controllers, drive technology, and sensors, and both companies are looking forward to a future founded on a close business relationship.