Georgia Tech's Research Horizons magazine - Fall 2003
A Perfect Fit
Agricultural technology program
observes a 30-year climb to the top.
by Gary Goettling
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A wireless handheld computer system under development at GTRI allows personnel to collect, retrieve and analyze a range of information from any location in a food processing plant, enabling closer control of production processes.
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WHEN THE GEORGIA POULTRY FEDERATION first approached the Georgia
Institute of Technology for help with a noise-abatement problem, no
one anticipated the referral would evolve into an exceptionally productive
long-term partnership.
"There is no finer example of a public-private partnership than
the poultry and agricultural technology research program at Georgia
Tech. It is a dramatic 30-year success story," says Abit Massey,
executive director of the Georgia Poultry Federation and a key player
in the establishment of ATRP. "The Federation is proud of its
role in requesting the initial poultry project at Tech in the early
1970s, and then working closely with Tech and state officials and legislators
in expanding it into a world-class program."
One measure of the ATRP's success is taking shape on the Georgia Tech
campus. Scheduled to open in summer 2004, the $9.4 million Food Processing
Technology Research Building will house the Georgia Tech Research Institute's
(GTRI) Food Processing Technology Division, ATRP's organizational parent.
The 35,000-square-foot Phase I structure opening in 2004 will contain
office and laboratory space for ATRP work in automation technology,
information technology and environmental systems. It will also accommodate
research activities for FoodPAC, an industry-led partnership with the
state serving Georgia's food processing industries (see sidebar). An
11,000-square-foot Phase II structure is also planned to house food
safety, human factors and bioprocessing research.
Funding for the buildings is being provided by the state of Georgia
and corporate donors, particularly in the poultry industry.
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The $9.4 million Food Processing Technology Research Building will house the Georgia Tech Research Institute's Food Processing Technology Division, the Agricultural Technology Research Program's organizational parent.
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"
The new buildings will open doors that will strengthen Georgia Tech's
partnerships with industry," says Craig Wyvill, chief of GTRI's
Food Processing Technology Division. "That, in turn, may position
the Institute as a research and development hub for the injection
of technology into food processing equipment design."
Georgia's nation-leading poultry industry has been the catalyst,
as well as chief beneficiary, of GTRI's application of technology
to the
agriculture business – efforts that include the establishment
of ATRP in 1973.
It started with a bang – or more accurately, a lot of noise.
Concerned with mitigating the high levels of equipment noise in poultry
processing plants, the Georgia Poultry Federation turned to Georgia
Tech for help. Researchers conducted one of the first definitive
studies of the noise environment in a poultry plant. Teaming with
NASA, researchers
developed sound-absorbing fiberglass panels with a special, high-tech
film coating capable of withstanding frequent washdowns, while also
letting the noise penetrate to the soft, absorptive center. When
installed on the ceiling of a plant, the panels reduced sound levels
by two orders
of magnitude. They were later marketed under the name Sanitary Acous-Tech
Sound Panels.
Through the remainder of the energy-conscious '70s, the Poultry Federation
frequently returned to Georgia Tech with concerns that resulted in
several demonstration projects. Much of the research focused on energy
efficiency and alternative fuel resources, including wood, solar energy
and methane.
In the 1980s, ATRP's work shifted to systems-development projects dealing
primarily with environmental compliance, electronic automation and
plant-maintenance practices. ATRP research activities included:a thermally
enhanced system to provide a faster, cheaper and more effective means
for poultry producers to remove water from a valuable poultry byproduct
called skimmings. Speeding up the separation process without adding
chemicals was a major enhancement in the efficient recovery of skimmings.
data entry terminals networked along the processing line, forming the
basis for a tracking system created by ATRP scientists to automate
post-mortem poultry inspection. The innovative information-management
project enabled plant personnel, under a U.S. Department of Agriculture
initiative, to assist with the inspection procedure. It evolved from
a similar ATRP-created system for monitoring poultry quality.
Building on the foundation set by its previous work, ATRP research
from the 1990s to the present has focused on applied technology. Projects
are divided into five areas: environmental sustainability, ergonomics
and worker safety, food safety, factory automation and computer information
systems.
"
We're pushing the technology frontier and starting to deliver breakthroughs
in low-cost imaging, robotics and sensor technologies," Wyvill
says. "We're also involved with some really innovative digital
signal-processing work and coming up with software that can discriminate
scenes and images to make determinations on good and bad quality
features, which is not easy."
Water consumption tops the list of environmental issues of concern
to the poultry industry. ATRP researchers are studying water-saving
approaches to the rinse cycle in poultry and meat processing, as
well as ways to get "the most bang for the buck" with new
technologies for wastewater treatment, Wyvill adds.
In information technology, ATRP engineers were among the first to recognize
the benefits of mobile wireless computing in a food plant.
"
Wearable and hand-held computers are going to have a huge impact on
the efficiency of plant operations by allowing dynamic statistical
process control," Wyvill explains.
Current ATRP projects include:machine vision and sophisticated image
analysis to provide the basic technologies behind a prototype systemic
screening system. Now undergoing field testing, the system automates
the repetitive sizing, grading and quality-inspection tasks involved
in poultry processing. System enhancements detect broken wings, bruising,
improperly hung birds and empty shackles, in addition to monitoring
line speed.
optimal, real-time control over the poultry-processing line – the
chief goal of the mobile computing research conducted through ATRP.
The wireless hand-held system under development allows personnel
to collect, retrieve and analyze a range of information from any
location
in the plant, enabling closer control of production processes.
an intelligent-cutting system project, another step in the automation
of poultry processing. Integrating 3-D machine vision with precision
robotics, researchers are developing a flexible, sensor-based system
that can debone a chicken breast with the same skill and accuracy as
a human worker.
While poultry processing offers a tremendous and relatively untapped
opportunity for the application of technology, it's not the only agribusiness
with wide-open potential, Wyvill notes.
"
As we keep pushing the development of key technologies like imaging,
robotics, advanced sensors, integrated optical sensors and so forth,
we're designing them for a certain application in poultry," he
explains. "But at the same time, we're making these technologies
more cost-effective and, therefore, available for other industry
sectors." |
