Light field control and automatic identification experimental system for physical impairment of glass samples

•Light field control.•New identification method for physical impairment of glass samples.•The finite difference time domain (FDTD) method.•The numerical results are consistent with the experimental data.•Automatic identification experimental system. In this paper, we firstly propose a novel identification method for physical impairment of glass spheres samples based on the light field control. An identification simulation subsystem based on the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method to numerically study the light field control is proposed. The numerical results are consistent with the experimental data. On the basis of above numerical investigation, an automaticidentification experimental system for physical impairment of glass samples based on the Cortex-M3 is proposed. The relevanthardware circuitdesign,main program design, subprogram design of circuit modules, system specific framework structure and corresponding component design,andmaininterface between the master computer and slave microcontroller are accomplished. An automaticidentification experimental system for physical impairment of glass samples with automatic feeding subsystem and automatic sorting subsystem is achieved.