US 2019/0313654 A1 · Automated Process for Determining Amount of Meat Remaining on Animal Carcass

Abstract

An automated process assesses an amount of meat remaining on a trimmed animal carcass by generating image data of the carcass and processing the image data in a computer to calculate the amount of meat remaining on the carcass. The automated process can be carried out using an equation developed by counting pixels in an area of interest in images of a plurality of reference trimmed carcasses from which the remaining meat is thereafter scraped and weighed, to produce data points used to develop the equation which is then used to calculate the amount of meat remaining on a trimmed carcass as it proceeds down a processing line.

Claims33

Dependent claims

An automated process for determining an amount of meat remaining on an animal carcass, comprising:

(A) generating image data with a camera, the image data being of an animal carcass after meat has been removed from at least a portion of the carcass;
(B) transmitting the image data from the camera to a computer having machine vision software;
and
(C) processing the image data using the machine vision software to identify data related to meat remaining on the animal carcass;
and
(D) determining the amount of meat remaining on the animal carcass from the data identified as relating to the meat remaining on the animal carcass.

3 more elements

An automated process for determining an amount of meat remaining on an animal carcass, comprising:

(A) generating a reference image for each of a plurality of trimmed reference carcasses and locating an area of interest in each reference image and counting the number of pixels within a value range in each area of interest for each of the plurality of trimmed reference carcasses and determining the weight of meat remaining on each of the reference carcasses;
(B) developing an equation by cross-referencing pixel count within the value range with weight of meat remaining on the carcass for each of the reference carcasses;
(C) generating an image of a trimmed carcass to be automatically assessed for amount of meat remaining thereon;
(D) locating the area of interest in the image of the trimmed carcass to be automatically assessed;
(E) counting a number of pixels in the value range in the area of interest in the trimmed carcass to be automatically assessed;
and
(F) processing the pixel count in the value range in the area of interest in the image of the trimmed carcass to be automatically assessed to determine the amount of meat remaining on the trimmed carcass to be automatically assessed, using the equation that cross-references pixel count with weight of meat remaining on each of the reference carcasses.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Automated Process for Determining Amount of Meat Remaining on Animal Carcass

Life of this patent

Automated Process for Determining Amount of Meat Remaining on Animal Carcass

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims33