Y. Tao et Jg. Ibarra, Thickness-compensated X-ray imaging detection of bone fragments in debonedpoultry - Model analysis, T ASAE, 43(2), 2000, pp. 453-459
Detection Of bone fragments in poultry meat remains a challenge. In the ind
ustrial deboning process, bone fragments often remain in chicken fillets, e
scaping manual or x-ray machine defection. A new method was proposed to com
pensate for x-ray absorption variations, which occur due to the uneven thic
kness of fillets. Imaging detection algorithms were developed to integrate
thickness and x-ray images and to produce a thickness-compensated x-ray ima
ge for the extraction of bone fragment signals. Plastic molds with four dif
ferent slopes were designed for forming poultry meat for conceptual tests a
nd imaging algorithm development. Experimental results from sample analyses
demonstrated that the four types of frequent and hard-to-detect bone fragm
ents could be detected no matter where they were located in chicken meat of
uneven thickness. The proposed imaging method eliminated the false pattern
s and enhanced the sensitivity of x-ray in bone fragment detection. The tec
hnique has the potential for non-destructive internal detection of hazardou
s materials in food products with uneven thickness.