Feasibility Study Using Robotics for Boning Pork Loins

Today the meat processing industry is significantly affected by high and increasing labour costs and staff shortage due to unattractive cold and humid working environment with ergonomic constraints. In order to keep this industry on a high level of copetition on a long-term basis and ensuring high meat quality, the application of more high technolgy in general and specially in flexible automation will be required. Automatic meat cutting and boning will be one of the key items for meat processing technology in the future. At the Fraunhofer IPA, in cooperation with the Swedish Meat Research Institute, Kävlinge, a feasibility study of a new method for automatic boning of pork loins with robots is worked out employing Virtual Reality technology in the developing, programming and testing phase. Using different sensor systems like computer vision and tactile feedback sensors the bones in the loin can be detected. Employing advanced simulation technique like Virtual Reality complex cutting pr ocesses can be simulated in order to reduce the developing time of a real robot. At Fraunhofer IPA a real robot workcell and the simulation of these robot cell in Virtual Reality has been implemented for further development.