Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine - Fall 2001
Engineering Edibles
 Robotic
fingers grasp food packages and place them in shipping containers, grapefruit
whiz by high-speed inspection cameras and an automated visual inspection
system examines chicken parts for traces of bone missed during deboning.
It isn't the production floor of a major food processor, but the research
lab of the Food Processing Technology Division at Georgia Tech.
This is where Tech scientists and researchers work daily to develop and
test technology to advance the operating capabilities of the food processing
industry through two programs, the Agricultural Technology Research Program
(ATRP) and Georgia's Traditional Industries Program for Food Processing,
which is managed through the Food Processing Advisory Council (FoodPAC).
"
The food processing industry relies heavily on third-party equipment
manufacturers to develop and introduce new processing technologies. This
tack reduces industry risk, but also limits innovation," says Craig
Wyvill, director of the Food Processing Technology Division, part of GTRI.
Founded in 1973, Tech's ATRP is one of the oldest and largest agricultural
technology research and development programs in the nation. Its poultry
industry focus is directed at innovations ranging from biosensors to test
poultry for salmonella and other harmful bacteria to a portable computer
system for screening the risk of worker injury on the job.
ATRP is also developing information technology systems for the food industry.
Voice-operated wearable computers have been used in Claxton Poultry's processing
plant in Claxton, Ga. The system is used to record data gathered during
processing, says Jennifer Stavriotis, hazard analysis critical control point
coordinator at the plant.
"
The computer data creates less paperwork and allows the plant to be monitored
via the computer. The system is fairly easy to use and it ties in directly
to the other monitoring we are required to do," Stavriotis says.
Work on wearable computers began at ATRP around 1994.
Test runs using the wearable computers have also been done at Cagle/Keystone
Foods in Camilla, Ga.
Bill Leverett, vice president of manufacturing for agricultural equipment
maker Durand-Wayland Inc., says his company contacted Tech about three years
ago after citrus producers requested a machine to automate the fruit inspection
process.
"
They needed a better way to do the defect sorting. In the fruit industry,
there is a shortage of labor and the grading of fruit is the most labor-intensive
part of the business. Because they are doing it manually now, another problem
is getting everyone to do the same thing the same way," Leverett says. "When
you have 25 to 30 people doing the job and you tell them what you want,
you still can't get any two of them to agree on the same fruit having the
same defects. Consistency is a big problem and we thought that is this was
something we could automate, it would solve that problem."
The first-generation prototype developed through FoodPAC is a high-speed,
camera-imaging system that could inspect 600 grapefruit per minute on a
one-by-one basis using low-cost Universal Serial Bus cameras that photograph
the fruit in four quadrants from the top and bottom for a three-dimensional
scan. "Achieving these speeds has been a real challenge for our team," says
GTRI research engineer and project director Wayne Daley. "But the end
result has been a unique and potentially groundbreaking system."
Researchers are developing a prototype that could be ready for field
testing within a year, Leverett says.
To help house its expanding range of research activities, a new, 45,000-square-foot
food research center is planned for the North Avenue Area in 2002. It will
help bring all of the depart-ment's far-flung units together. ATRP and FoodPAC
scientists and researchers now are working in labs and offices spread throughout
campus. "We are building an interdisciplinary research center that
will allow GTRI and academic faculty to work together with synergy under
one roof," Wyvill says.
The facility will include office space and laboratories for automation
technology, information technology, human factors, food safety, environmental
and bio-processing. In addition, the facility will contain electronic interactive
exhibits in the lobby and will house a 50-seat auditorium and a conference
room for industry seminars, symposiums, workshops and meetings.
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