Description
Operating at high speeds—often processing ninety to over a hundred pieces per minute—the system routes poultry through a continuous automated loop:
Infeed & Singulation: Whole chickens or cut parts are placed onto a food-grade flat belt conveyor. The conveyor accelerates slightly to create a physical gap (singulation) between each piece so the sensors can evaluate them individually.
Dynamic Weighing: The product passes over an ultra-precise, motion-compensated load cell (a dynamic Pico Check Weigher). The system captures the exact weight of the moving chicken piece in milliseconds.
Vision Inspection (Optional): Overhead smart cameras scan the chicken simultaneously to evaluate visual quality parameters, such as skin tears, bruising, blood spots, or incorrect fat trimming.
Smart Diverting: A central Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) matches the weight and quality data against predefined grading rules and triggers a mechanical mechanism further down the line to smoothly guide the piece into its designated collection bin or tray.
Critical Engineering Requirements for Poultry
Sorting raw chicken presents distinct material and environmental challenges that standard manufacturing systems cannot handle:
Strict Sanitary (Washdown) Design: Poultry plants are cold, wet, and highly prone to bacterial contamination (like Salmonella). Systems must be built entirely out of Stainless Steel (SS304 or SS316) with IP69K-rated waterproof electronics, allowing the machinery to be blasted daily with high-pressure hot water and chemical foam.
Sticky and Delicate Textures: Raw chicken flesh is soft, fragile, and naturally sticky. To prevent tearing or product buildup, grading lines use non-stick polyurethane belts or open-mesh modular plastic belts alongside ultra-smooth plastic sorting gates.
High-Speed Execution: Because poultry lines process massive volumes, the weighing and diverting mechanisms must reset almost instantly to handle a constant, rapid stream of parts.
Key Benefits for Poultry Processors
Minimizes Product “Giveaway”: Fast-food chains and supermarkets demand exact weights (e.g., a restaurant group requiring breasts to be precisely 150g–170g for uniform cooking). Automated grading stops profit loss by ensuring processors don't accidentally ship overweight pieces.
Massive Throughput: Automated systems comfortably sort multiple tons of chicken per hour, maintaining a continuous workflow that manual hand-sorting teams cannot physically match.
Enhanced Food Safety: By replacing manual handling with automated conveyors and mechanical diverters, human contact with the raw meat is drastically minimized, significantly lowering cross-contamination risks and extending product shelf life.
