A New Approach to Detect the Cutting Positions for a Robotic Beef Carcass Scribing System

Scribing (initial carcase side cuts) tasks carried out in Australian abattoirs incur high costs in terms of labour usage and availability, low accuracy and significant Occupational Health and Safety risks. Thus it was chosen as one of the tasks to address for possible automation. It has been shown that a novel combination of a specifically adapted robot end-effector and appropriate image analysis software is able to control a robot to perform the required scribing tasks. The image analysis functions developed have shown the ability to identify carcass features including individual ribs (5 through to 12 at this point in time), vertebrae joints, sternum joints and featherbones. Once these features are identified, the cut path is determined and the robot control system can proceed to direct the circular saw along the cut trajectories and carry out each scribe cut one after the other (typically 4-6 cuts). This document will describe the project investigation details. The experimental results are demonstrated. Finally, the technical considerations and recommendations for the further development of a full automated scribing system are outlined.