Yr. Chen et al., CLASSIFICATION OF ONLINE POULTRY CARCASSES WITH BACKPROPAGATION NEURAL NETWORKS, Journal of food process engineering, 21(1), 1998, pp. 33-48
A transportable system equipped with an overhead shackle conveying lin
e and a visible/near-infrared (Vis/NIR) spectrophotometer system was a
ssembled and used at a poultry slaughter plant. The reflectance spectr
a of each poultry carcass hung on the moving shackle was measured with
a stationary fiber optic probe, which was set 2 to 5 cm away from the
carcass, depending on the size. Reflectance spectra of wholesome and
unwholesome poultry carcasses on the moving shackle, set at 60 or 90 b
irds/min, were measured, either under room light or in a dark environm
ent. The scanning time for each carcass was 0.32 s. Most of the unwhol
esome poultry carcasses for this study were septicemic and air-sacculi
tic. The average accuracy in classifying wholesome and unwholesome car
casses was above 94%. All the misclassified carcasses were air-sacculi
tic. With a shackle speed of 90 birds/min, the highest average accurac
y was obtained when the reflectance was measured in the dark (97.5%).
The results showed that the accuracy of classification could be improv
ed with the maintenance of a consistent lighting environment. All resu
lts indicated; the Vis/NIR spectrophotometer system would be a highly
accurate, robust tool for on-line, real-time classification of wholeso
me and unwholesome carcasses.