Integration of visible/NIR spectroscopy and multispectral imaging for poultry carcass inspection

An integrated system which consisted of a visible/near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic subsystem and an intensified multispectral imaging subsystem was tested for its accuracy in separating abnormal (unwholesome) from normal poultry carcasses. The spectroscopic subsystem measured reflectance spectra of the poultry carcasses at wavelengths from 471 to 965 nm. For the multispectral imaging subsystem, the gray-level intensity of whole carcasses was measured using six different optical filters of 542, 571, 641, 700, 720 and 847 nm wavelengths. The results of the test showed that, with the integrated system there were no abnormal carcasses being misclassified as normal carcasses. When individual subsystem was used for classification, the error of the spectroscopic subsystem was 2.6% and that of the multispectral imaging subsystem was 3.9%. Thus the integrated system could be used for separating carcasses into normal and abnormal streams. With perfect selection of normal carcasses in the normal carcass stream, the inspector needs only to inspect the abnormal carcass stream. Thus, the through-pur of carcass of the processing line per inspector could be greatly increased. Published by Elsevier Science Limited