Method and apparatus for measuring characteristics of meat
OwnerRobert P. Clintoninventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for measuring characteristics of meat, such as beef. More particularly, the invention uses quantitative analysis of ultrasonic A scan signals to measure the following characteristics of meat in real time: the percentage of intramuscular fat, the quality grade, the merit number, the depth of back fat and the approximate size of a predetermined rib eye area. The ultrasonic A scan signals are measured above the twelfth rib, above the thirteenth rib and between the twelfth and thirteenth ribs. The invention can be used with either live or processed animals.
Claims44
A method of measuring characteristics of meat, comprising the steps of:
- transmitting an ultrasonic signal into the meat using an A scan ultrasonic transducer;
- receiving a return of said ultrasonic signal using said A scan transducer;
- and
- determining a characteristic of the meat by performing a fast fourier transform on said return signal.
An apparatus for measuring characteristics of meat, comprising:
- an A scan transducer that transmits an ultrasonic signal into the meat and receives a return signal;
- and
- a computer connected to receive said return signal from said A scan transducer, said computer converting said return signal to the frequency spectrum by a fast fourier transform and determining a characteristic of the meat based on characteristics of said fourier transformed return signal.
A method of monitoring the genetic characteristics of a plurality of beef animals, comprising:
- assigning each of said plurality of beef animals an identification number;
- transmitting an ultrasonic signal into each of said plurality of beef animals using an A scan ultrasonic transducer;
- receiving a return signal of said ultrasonic signal for each of said plurality of beef animals using said A scan transducer;
- determining the characteristics of each of said plurality of beef animals by performing a fast fourier transform on said return signal;
- and
- storing said identification numbers and their associated meat characteristics in a database.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.