Simulation-Based Multi-Fillet Evaluation of Woody Breast Poultry Fillets
2026-06-15 • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied a way to detect a chicken muscle problem called woody breast, which makes meat tough. Current methods look at one piece of meat from the side while it falls on a conveyor belt but can only check one at a time. They created a new system using a camera from above that can watch many pieces at once by simulating how the meat bends and changes shape. Their results show this top-down method works well to spot the problem and could speed up inspection on processing lines.
woody breastbroiler chickenmyopathymeat qualityconveyor beltdigital twin3D meshviscoelasticityshape deformationimage analysis
Authors
Chirantan Sen Mukherjee, Seung-Chul Yoon, William J. Beksi
Abstract
Woody breast (WB) is a myopathy in modern broiler chickens that causes the breast muscle to become unusually stiff and fibrous, leading to decreased meat quality and significant economic losses. State-of-the-art automated WB detection relies on a side-view imaging system to analyze the bending behavior of a single fillet as it falls off a conveyor belt. While highly accurate, this approach is constrained by its single-fillet field of view, creating throughput bottlenecks on commercial processing lines. In this paper, we address this limitation via a novel multi-fillet detection architecture utilizing a top-down camera configuration. To validate our approach, we first develop a high-fidelity digital twin of an industrial conveyor system. Next, we synthesize a diverse dataset of 3D fillet meshes and model their viscoelastic bending dynamics using a physics-based simulation engine. Lastly, a continuous 2D shape deformation score is extracted from the top-down perspective as the simulated fillets traverse the roller precipice. Experimental results demonstrate that the top-down shape score effectively captures the contour changes of the fillets as it bends, providing a robust and scalable alternative to a side-view imaging system for simultaneous multi-fillet WB evaluation.