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Abstract

A method and device for optically counting small particles, like grains of seed and fertilizer and other materials employed in agriculture. The particles to be counted travel past a test field, interrupting as they do so a beam of light between a light emitter and a light detector. To make it possible to detect even several particles in the test field at the same time and to make the counting generally more precise, individual points where the path of a beam of light is interrupted by particles passing through the grid are detected in sequential scanning cycles by beams of light that create an optical grid and are retained in the form of information describing one or more particles, information describing the particles and obtained in different scanning cycles are compared, and counting signals that correspond to the number of individual particles passing through are derived from the variations in the interrupting points determined during the comparison.

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First Claim