Currently, the robot has been used to fly the aircraft on the battlefield, to help doctors perform surgery. But to cut a chicken? Gary McMurray, Georgia Institute of Technology researcher, spent eight years to make a robot that can do it.
Cuts of chicken breast meat from one whole chicken may seem simple. But these activities require hand-eye coordination, and the ability to assess brain reflexively thick slices, McMurray said. Secondly it is hard to duplicate on the robot.
A robot that can cut the chicken meat with the right can save millions of dollars, experts say the poultry industry. Pengiritan it comes from labor costs and increasing the amount of meat to be processed.
But the making of a robot that is not easy at all. "Each chicken is different," said McMurray, division leader of food processing technology at Georgia Tech Research Institute.
McMurray and his team are now ready to test a prototype robot that can cut the chicken meat from the chicken intact. The work they were armed with a robotic arm and a scalpel. Robot guided by three-dimensional image processing system, which can determine the size of any chickens in an instant. The system is also able to measure with certainty the thickness of the skin, flesh, and bones, said McMurray.
American poultry industry seems to start drooling. Chicken meat consumption per capita is the United States increased from 18.3 kilograms per year in 1970 to 37.9 kilograms in 2010.
"It would have changed the playing field," said John Wright, vice president of Fieldale Farms operations in Georgia.
Some others feel anxious. Poultry industry workers worried about losing their jobs. The restaurant also does not want any bone fragments in chicken meat chunks results robots.
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Gary McMurray demonstrated in the lab robot chicken cutter.
Automatic chicken cutting machine is already used by some chicken meat processing plant. Unlike robots, these machines can not adapt to a variety of shapes and sizes of chicken.
Meyn Food Processing Technology (Netherlands) is a manufacturer of automatic chicken processing machine the world's largest. But, "as good as any of our tools, we still have not been able to compensate for how humans can cut the chicken meat to the bones clean," said Shannon Heath, spokesman Meyn in America.
McMurray feel optimistic about the robot makes. When he attended the exhibition industry, he always approached by the meat processing company that asked about the latest developments robot.
The process of making this robot does not always go smoothly. Several prototype robots too much cut of meat, so that bone fragments get into the chicken meat. Another prototype actually quite a lot of meat left on the bone.
The researchers have tried various ways to understand the process of cutting meat and chicken anatomy. They complete the processing plant workers with a special tool that records how workers cut the chicken. They even do an MRI scan for chickens in the local hospital.
"We do not yet fully understand the science behind the cuts of meat," said McMurray. "This is where we appreciate what man can do."