Overview
Since 1973, the Georgia
Tech Research Institute's Agricultural Technology Research Program (ATRP) has provided innovative engineering
research and development for the poultry industry in particular and the food-processing
industry at large. The program's staff has studied the challenges facing this important
industrial sector in Georgia, the nation, and abroad, developing a number of innovative
technologies for improving processing efficiency and effectiveness. The program's
outreach activities focus on issues and challenges that affect the industry today.
The Agricultural Technology Research Program is administratively
headquartered within the Aerospace, Transportation, and Advanced Systems
Laboratory (ATAS)
Laboratory of the Georgia Tech Research Institute. ATRP
is supported by the State of Georgia and conducted in cooperation
with the Georgia Poultry Federation.
Experience
Research staff members have complementary backgrounds in a variety of fields, including:
- Mechanical engineering;
- Electrical engineering;
- Computer engineering;
- Energy systems engineering;
- Environmental engineering;
- Safety engineering;
- Physics;
- Microbiology; and
- Communications technology.
On average, engineers and
scientists working on the program have more than seven years of experience in food-processing
technology research and service.
Innovations
The Georgia Tech Research Institute has a history
of developing innovative technologies that eventually reach the commercial marketplace.
Some of these developments are released through special licensing agreements, while
others are offered for unrestricted use by commercial developers. A sampling of recent
successful innovations includes:
- A patent-pending, state-of-the-art
computerized broiler-house management system for monitoring and controlling growout
activities;
- One of the first computer-vision
systems developed specificially to size and identify poultry parts;
- An ingenious thermally
enhanced dewatering system for quickly and affordably removing more than half of
the water in dissolved-air flotation (DAF) skimmings on-site;
- One of the first electronic
bird-counting systems for providing real-time, continuous tracking of processing
plant line speeds and capacity utilization;
- A USDA-approved sound-absorbing
panel for effectively reducing noise levels in processing plants; and
- One of the first designs
for covering a scalder to reduce heat loss and conserve energy.
|
