Volume 18 | Number 1 | Spring 2006 | Automation Issue

Researchers Make Strides in the Development of an Automated System to Hang Live Birds

Gary McMurray and Bruce Webster run a test on the automatic intelligent transfer system.

Live hang, the initial process in poultry plants where workers manually transfer live birds from a conveyor to a moving shackle line for processing, is considered a prime opportunity area for automated technology. In addition to its manual nature, the process is laborious and sometimes hazardous. Workers perform a task that is highly repetitive and which generates dust. In addition, the manner in which they handle the birds can impact product quality further down line. Georgia Tech researchers along with colleagues from the University of Georgia and USDA’s Russell Research Center are attempting to address this challenge with the development of an automated transfer system.

In tackling the challenge of automating the live hang process, Dr. Kok-Meng Lee, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Mechanical Engineering and project co-director, explains that unlike the handling of non-reactive objects, both mechanical forces and the bird’s natural reflexes contribute to the overall dynamics that a handling system faces. Recognizing this, he and his Georgia Tech research team have been working with Dr. Bruce Webster, a professor in the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Georgia, who specializes in animal behavior. While Lee and the Georgia Tech research team have used their engineering expertise to design the system components, Webster and his colleagues have applied their knowledge of bird behavior to address how the birds will respond to a mechanical transfer system. Their combined work has resulted in a handling system they call the Automatic Intelligent Transfer System.

The system is designed to transfer birds from the loading dock conveyor to the kill line and consists of four separate operations (singulating, separating, grasping, and shackling), explains Gary McMurray, a research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and project co-director.

Singulating

The singulation system takes birds that are randomly positioned and oriented on the conveyor and outputs a single file of birds that are either facing forwards or backwards only. The spacing of the birds is irregular, but they are single file.

Separating

The separation system takes the irregular-spaced birds and spaces them at a predefined distance. This separation distance is critical to being able to shackle the birds.

Grasping

The grasping system then grasps the birds via a set of mechanical hands. At this time, the orientation of the birds is checked, and the birds are rotated if necessary.

Shackling

The bird is then placed onto a moving perch where it is shackled through fixed automation.

McMurray says that the grasping and shackling systems have been extensively tested with a limited number of different sized birds. He believes these initial tests are very encouraging and indicate that the team is on the right path. Upcoming tests are planned for the singulation and separation systems at the University of Georgia. During the tests, the two systems will be evaluated as a complete system. The team will manually place birds on an in-feed conveyor to simulate the loading of the birds from a typical conveyor at the loading dock. The birds will then run through the singulation fingers, to the separation fingers, and finally be placed onto a perch. Because singulation and separation are performed while the birds are relatively unconstrained, they are probably among the most difficult tasks to automate with any degree of control. McMurray says that these tests are critical to the future success of the system.

If the testing of the combined singulation/separation system proves successful, researchers will then focus their efforts on adding the grasping and eventually the shackling system to form a completely integrated system. This final design will then undergo extensive testing at a poultry facility followed by commercialization.

“Automation of poultry handling has the potential to improve product quality and economic return by potentially reducing rates of bruising and stress-related meat downgrading. Automation can also reduce labor costs and improve workplace safety,” says Lee.

In addition, the system under development has the potential to improve humane handling practices. According to Lee, birds tend to be less reactive to mechanical soft fingers than to human handlers. It is intended that, once cradled mechanically, the bird be rendered instantaneously insensible to pain by electrical stunning so that it may be killed humanely, explains Lee. For this, the research team has partnered with Dr. Jeff Burr, an animal specialist with USDA’s Russell Research Center, who is studying stunning and killing options.

Lee notes that in order to reduce the number of live birds that had to be evaluated experimentally, computer simulations based on force and motion prediction models developed in the team’s earlier research efforts have been employed to aid the control system design of the automated transfer system.

“The collaborative efforts among Georgia Tech, UGA, and USDA are helping to define an improved, humane live-bird transfer system characterized by a minimum variability in bird response and struggle. The potential benefits and payback of the automation include a reduction in labor costs, the elimination of manual repetitive tasks, and the potential to reduce product quality impacts from the handling process,” says Lee.

“This development is also helping create a fundamental science and technology base that will support future innovations in poultry handling, where product size/shape variety and birds’ natural reflexes have made handling automation a challenging problem too complex to address,” adds Lee.

Funding for the project is being provided by Georgia Tech’s Agricultural Technology Research Program and the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association. A U.S. patent has been granted on the system design.