United States of America, As Represented by the Secretary of Agriculture

Gerald W Heitschmidt

Kurt C Lawrence

Seung C Yoon

Bosoon Park

Vernon A Savage

Brian C Bowker

Tae Sung Shin

Hong Zhuang

Deana Jones

The image sorting system sorts normal chicken breast meat fillets from chicken fillets that exhibit wooden breast myopathy (i.e. WB fillets). In the preferred embodiment, a camera and associated controller gather data and construct a digital image of a chicken breast fillet as it travels on a conveyer belt. The digital image is used to calculate a centroid (i.e. center of mass) of the fillet. As the fillet moves over a nose of the conveyor belt and free-falls to a lower conveyor belt, the controller determines the distance between the fillet centroid and a reference point (preferably the conveyer belt axis of rotation). If the distance exceeds a predetermined minimum distance, the fillet is designated a WB fillet.

Imaging system for sorting poultry meat with wooden breast myopathy

An avian eggshell egg-check/crack detection system was developed to aide official egg graders. It includes an imaging system and a device to produce negative pressure in an egg chamber.

Egg micro-crack detection systems

Growing community of inventors

Athens, GA, United States of America

Gerald W Heitschmidt