JP2002281891A - Cutting line loading system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a loading system of a meat-cutting line enabling the operation of a cutting line in high efficiency corresponding to the change of the meat quality and the production of cut meat blocks having uniform size with a simple structure. SOLUTION: The cutting line for chicken body is provided with an automatic cutting machine in the line, and a light source and a camera to photograph the image of the body before the cutting step. The photographed image is processed to get the length from the tail end to the shoulder part of the body and the obtained data is used for the classification of the bodies and the automatic control of the cutting machine. Bodies having uniform size can be supplied even if the bodies have different meat quality and the cutting machine can be finely adjusted to produce the cut meat blocks having uniform size.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a dismantling line loading system for selecting and inputting a body or the like when there is an individual difference in a dismantling line for producing a partial meat or the like having a predetermined size.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In slaughterhouses such as chickens, live birds received from farms are sorted by weight after completion of primary dismantling processes such as blood release, hot water pickling, hair removal, hollowing out, and cooling. Sorted into binna, small bin, etc. If the body is selected by the weight sorter, it is put into the secondary demolition processing line for the big one if it is large, and the whole body from the large butt to the thigh, breast, etc. After that, it is weighed and packed and shipped.

[0003] Meanwhile, there are individual differences in the body and the like due to breeding such as birth, feed, exercise amount and season. Although the current dismantling machine is designed to absorb this individual difference to some extent, there is a limit in the size of the body if it can be dismantled, so when it is put in, the bodies are sorted by size. Conventionally, this size sorting has been performed by weight sorting. That is, since it can be considered that there is a substantially proportional relationship between the size and the weight of the body, the size is sorted by sorting the body by weight. That is, there is a sorting step by weight after the primary dismantling process and before the secondary dismantling process, and according to the measurement, heavy ones are sorted to a large-size disassembly line and light ones are sorted to a small-size disassembly line. JP-A-6-114341
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H11-146131 discloses an example in which a weight sorter is applied to a dismantling line for dismantling chicken bodies. The weight is sorted by a weighing conveyor supported by a weight detector such as a load cell, and the body is sorted into a large size line and a small size line by size. Here, each boundary weight value is sequentially calculated so that the weighed articles can be sorted into a predetermined number of weight ranks at a substantially predetermined ratio, and the new boundary weight value sequentially calculated in place of the old boundary weight value is calculated. Thus, even if the weight distribution of the articles changes, the articles are distributed to each line at a predetermined ratio. It has been devised that the sorting is uniformly performed by shifting the boundary value to be sorted, and even if the weight distribution of the articles changes, the articles can be sorted to a plurality of lines at a predetermined number of lines.

On the other hand, recently, from the consumer's health consciousness,
Consumer interest has shifted to chicken over beef and pork, and even lower in fat content, and the food service industry and major supermarkets sell chicken for sale with low fat. Therefore, producers also breed low-fat chickens by devising feed and breeding methods. Therefore, when high-fat chickens and low-fat chickens are mixed by the conventional breeding method, the size of the low-fat chickens is larger than that of the conventional high-fat chickens by the weight of fat, even if the body weight is the same. Thus, as in the past, it can no longer be said that there is a substantially proportional relationship between the body size and the weight as in the prior example. That is,
Even with the same weight, the size is different, and the displacement width is larger than before. Therefore, there is a case where a material out of the adjustment range of the dismantling machine is supplied, and there is a problem that the size of the partial meat is not constant.

[0005] In addition, the partial meat such as thigh meat and breast meat produced in this demolition line is processed into fried food or the like in the facilities of a food processing company and incorporated as part of a product like a lunch box. Or sold as a side dish. The percentage of consumers who purchase raw meat, that is, meat, breast meat, and other partial meats produced by demolition lines by weight is decreasing year by year, and most of them are used in food processing lines of food processors. Therefore, it is becoming more important that the partial meats such as the thigh meat and the breast meat have the same apparent size than the weight as the so-called constituent parts in the food processing line. When selling partial meats as commodities, consumers are strongly rejected by the difference in appearance.

[0006] In addition, due to technical progress of a mechanical dismantling system using a dismantling machine, it has been required to greatly reduce the time required for sorting. That is, 5 per hour
Demand for sorting 000 birds has also been issued, and weight sorters are no longer able to respond.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a high-efficiency demolition line for low-fat chickens and the like, which responds to changes in the body quality, and for the production of partial meat of uniform size. An object of the present invention is to provide a dismantling line loading system that can be produced with a simple configuration. The present inventors have found that the size from the hip end to the shoulder end of the body is proportional to the length of the femur in the chicken thigh, the length of the tibia, etc., and if these dimensions are the same,
It was found that the size of the disassembled partial meat can be made uniform.
The present invention is based on such new findings in the field.

[0008]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for loading a body onto a dismantling line in which an automatic dismantling machine is installed in the process, comprising a sorting step based on dimensions and a subsequent disassembling step. It is characterized by the following. Dimensions after primary dismantling processing such as blood release, water pickling, hair removal, hollowing out, cooling, etc., and before secondary dismantling processing such as automatic disassembly, shaping, weighing packaging etc. It is characterized in that a sorting step based only on the process is included. It responds to the change from the manual operation mainly to the dismantling machine by changing from the weight selection to the size selection. Then, it is possible to avoid the stop of the demolition machine due to the input of the raw material outside the permissible size and to produce the partial meat having a uniform size. The invention according to claim 2 is characterized in that the demolition line is a demolition line of the edible bird and the body, and in the selection step by image processing, the criteria for the selection are partial dimensions from the tail end to the shoulder end of the body. . The invention according to claim 3 is characterized in that the data of each body in the sorting process based on dimensions is connected to an automatic dismantling machine in the dismantling process via a line. The invention according to claim 4 is a loading system for putting the body into the dismantling line, wherein the image storage means captures and stores the image of the body which is freely placed, and the center line of the body which is created in advance for comparison. Is stored, and image processing means for calculating the partial dimensions from the buttocks to the shoulders of the body from the images.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below in detail based on an embodiment shown in the drawings. This is an exemplary listing and does not limit the invention. FIG. 1 shows one embodiment of the sorting step based on dimensions.

In FIG. 1, the chicken A to be separated enters the image capturing conveyor 2 from the supply belt conveyor 1, and the illumination 5 and the CCD camera 4 are operated in the cover 6 by the signal of the photoelectric tube of the image capturing position setting machine, and the free loading is performed. The image of the placed sorting target chicken A is taken into the analysis computer 8. According to the signal of the analysis result, the sorting target chicken A is sorted by size on the sorting conveyor belt. In addition, since a normal and a body image are compared in the image processing, a broken and deformed body can be distinguished from a normal body, and a mismatch and a body are excluded from the line.
In addition, the analysis data is connected to an adjustment device of a dismantling machine (not shown) to finely adjust the dismantling position, thereby enabling more optimal production in accordance with individual differences.

FIG. 2 shows the positions of the reference dimensions in the present invention. The position of the reference dimension for image processing in the analysis computer 8 is shown. Then, a partial dimension L from the hip end to the shoulder end of the body is measured, and sorted by L.

FIG. 3 shows the same chicken imaged from three directions, that is, the abdominal side, the dorsal side, and the side, and the L dimension is actually obtained by the analysis computer 8. The image processing time can be displayed at the same time. According to this result, the L value is 208 mm, 209 mm, 210 mm and 1 even when imaged from each direction.
The error was within%. In addition, the measurement time of the L value is 0.1261 seconds at the maximum, and the sorting process can be performed within 0.5 seconds at the maximum even if the movement time to the measurement position of the body is added. High-speed sorting was impossible.

As shown in FIG. 4, as an example, when an image is obtained using a camera from 360 ° around the chicken, the L value is not always easily obtained. α and β) in some cases. In this case, by installing a plurality of cameras at different angles, 360
It was possible to measure all chickens regardless of the direction of the chickens.

Further, for the chicken placed in various postures in the flow direction of the conveyor, the L dimension was obtained by the following method. In this method, the shoulder end and the butt end are oblique and the distance between these two points is not measured. Instead, the distance between two straight lines (planes) perpendicular to the center line of the chicken and in contact with the shoulder end and the butt end is determined. Measure. First, the center line of the chicken is first recognized by the procedures (1) and (2), and the L dimension is obtained by the procedure (3). (1) Capture an image taken from around the chicken in advance. For each image, the center line is analyzed in advance. (FIG. 5a) (2) An actual chicken image is captured, compared with the image prepared in (1), and the center line CC of the chicken in the new image is analyzed. The angle θ formed with the conveyor flow direction line MM is calculated. (Fig. 5b) (3) "Shoulder scanning frame" on the coordinate inclined by θ
And "Rotation scanning frame" are set. By scanning, X1-X2 line indicating the shoulder end and Y1 indicating the tail end
-Analyze the Y2 line. The distance between two straight lines X1-X2 and Y1-Y2 is analyzed. (FIG. 5c) Using the above procedure, it was found that there was no dimensional error related to the attitude in the flow direction.

[0015]

The present invention is embodied in the form described above, and has the following effects. Irrespective of the physical condition and the body quality, it is possible to supply a body having a size suitable for the dismantling machine in the subsequent dismantling process, so that there is no disruption of the process such as stopping the operation of the dismantling machine due to a body outside the size. Even if the meat quality is different from the conventional one, the body of the same size can be supplied, and the demolition machine is also fine-tuned, so that it is possible to produce partial meat of uniform size. Also, in image processing, normal and body images are compared, so it is possible to distinguish between a broken and deformed body and a normal one, such as throwing it into a dismantling machine and leading to operation stop Can also be avoided.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an embodiment of a dimensional sorting process of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows positions of reference dimensions in the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an example of a measurement result using an image according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a camera angle at which an L dimension cannot be measured.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a method of recognizing a posture in a flow direction and measuring an L dimension.

[Explanation of symbols]

 A Chicken to be sorted 1 Supply belt conveyor 2 Image capture belt conveyor 3 Sorting belt conveyor 4 Camera 5 Lighting 6 Cover 7 Image capture position setting machine (photoelectric tube) 8 Analysis computer 10 Sorting process based on dimensions

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A dismantling line loading system, comprising: an automatic dismantling machine for loading a body onto a dismantling line installed in a process, comprising a sorting step based on dimensions and a subsequent dismantling step. 2. The dismantling line loading system according to claim 1, wherein the dismantling line is a dismantling line of the poultry and the body, and the size is a partial dimension from a butt end to a shoulder end of the torso. 3. The dismantling line loading system according to claim 1, wherein the data of each body in the sorting step based on the size is connected to an automatic dismantling machine in the dismantling step via a line. 4. A loading system for loading a body into a disassembly line, wherein the image storage means captures and stores an image of the body when it is freely placed, and displays a center line of the body which has been prepared in advance for comparison. A disassembly line loading system, comprising: a storage means for storing a reference image which has been set; and an image processing means for calculating a partial dimension from the hip end to the shoulder end of the body from the image.