Key Technology COMPASS Optical Sorters

Key Technology has released the COMPASS family of food optical sorters, designed to detect foreign material (FM) and achieve product defect removal.

The range is suitable for sorting processed, frozen and pre-processed vegetables and fruits, nuts, leafy greens, potato chips, confections and other food products. With advanced sensors and lighting technology and NEXT sort engine, it identifies and separates plastic, glass, paper and other organic and inorganic FM from the line, in addition to sorting the specific product defects each processor wants to manage.

The product has been designed for ease of use, mimicking the navigation of smart device apps and enabling operators to quickly create and edit COMPASS sort recipes.

It features Key Discovery data analytics and reporting software, which turns the sorter into an IIoT-connected device.

The solution is offered in a range of configurable system types and sizes. The first to be released will be chute-fed COMPASS models, to be followed by belt-fed variants of the sorter. It can be installed inline at the start of the process to sort incoming product, after critical transformational processes on the line or at the end of the food processing line.