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Title: Two-Port Multispectral Imaging System for Contaminant Detection on Poultry Carcasses

Author
item Kise, Michio
item Park, Bosoon
item Lawrence, Kurt
item Windham, William

Submitted to: Proceedings of SPIE
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/30/2006
Publication Date: 12/1/2006
Citation: Kise, M., Park, B., Lawrence, K.C., Windham, W.R. 2006. Two-Port Multispectral Imaging System for Contaminant Detection on Poultry Carcasses. Proceedings of SPIE. Proceedings SPIE 6381-34

Interpretive Summary: Food safety in the poultry industry is ongoing problem. Several deaths occur each year from public consumption of contaminated poultry and/or meat. Potential contamination can occur when feces or ingesta is deposited on the surface of the carcass. Identification and separation of the birds contaminated by feces is very important to protect the consumer from a potential source of food poisoning. The current method of inspecting fecal contamination is through human visual observation with the criteria of color, consistency, and composition used for identification. Therefore, there is a need to develop science-based instrumentation which can reduce inspector fatigue, variability, insure continuous inspection, and provide a safe poultry food supply for the consumer. The objective of this research is to design and fabricate a compact, cost effective multispectral instrument and to collect and analyze spectra for real-time contaminant detection for poultry processing plants. The prototype system is developed and tested in the real environment and shows that it can effectively detect feces and ingesta on the surface of poultry carcasses.

Technical Abstract: The objective of this research is to design and fabricate a compact, cost effective multispectral instrument and to collect and analyze spectra for real-time contaminant detection for poultry processing plants. It was revealed by our previous research that the fecal contamination on the surface of the poultry carcass could be detected by sensing the spectral reflectance of the carcass surface in two specific wavelengths, namely 517 nm and 565 nm. The prototype system developed in this research consists of a multispectral imaging system, illumination system and handheld PC. To develop the system cost-effectively, all components are selected from off-the-shelf products and manually assembled. The multispectral imaging sensor developed in this research is a two-port imaging system that consists of two identical monochrome cameras, optical system and two narrow bandpass filters whose center of the wavelength are 520 and 560 nm, respectively. A spectral reflectance from a chicken carcass is collected and split in two directions by an optical system including a beamsplitter and lenses, and then two identical collimated lights are filtered by the narrow bandpass filters and delivered to the cameras. Lens distortions and geometric misalignment of the two cameras are mathematically compensated to register two images perfectly. The prototype system is tested in the real environment and shows that it can effectively detect feces and ingesta on the surface of poultry carcasses.