EXTALcoat : External Lubrication Coating Inspection System by Dynamic Laser Speckle Imaging

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Tablets are still the majority form of dosage, used by billions of people worldwide to deliver-life changing remedies. Tablet production techniques have barely changed over the last 100 years, until recently with the advent of new formulations (e.g. fast dissolving tablets that dissolved in the mouth without water) coupled to more efficient continuous process technologies with fewer process steps. The development of these new systems however has not been matched by the quality control systems that ensure product safety and efficacy. This project is proposing a new way of analysing the product during the manufacturing process to ensure that each and every tablet is produced to the same specification. The new instrument being proposed is based on the use of a laser which gives a speckled image of the tablet surface from which it is possible to determine certain quality attributes of the tablet, such as hardness and coating thickness, while providing opportunities for feedback control of the production process itself.