7 - Quality Inspection of Poultry Carcasses

Abstract

This chapter focuses on quality inspection of poultry carcasses using machine vision systems. Machine vision systems are useful for poultry industry applications, particularly in grading and inspection, because inspection and classification of poultry carcasses are a tedious and repetitive procedure. Machine vision with color and spectral imaging can be used successfully for poultry quality inspection. Development of high-speed and reliable inspection systems to ensure the safe production of poultry during postharvest processing has become an important issue, as the public is demanding assurance of better and safer food. Machine vision techniques are useful for the agricultural and food industries, particularly in grading and inspection. It is the technology that provides automated production processes with vision capabilities, which is particularly useful when the majority of inspection tasks are highly repetitive and extremely boring and their effectiveness depends on the efficiency of the human inspectors. Even though machine vision has evolved into a promising technology for agricultural product applications, among the many factors to be considered in online application are processing speed, reliability, and applicability for industrial environments. Several different machine vision systems, including color, multi-, and hyper-spectral imaging, have been developed and tested for poultry quality and safety inspection. For high-speed inspection, machine vision is a solution; however, it requires advanced sensing capabilities for the complexity of poultry carcasses. Multispectral imaging is a good tool in these advanced techniques because of its capability to detect both unwholesomeness and contamination using two or more specific wavelengths, which reflect the condition of poultry carcasses.