Patent ID: 11944105
Assignee: TYSON FOODS, INC.
Field: Handling (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC A  B  G | IPC A  B  G

Claim 13:
14. An automated computer controlled system for performing a meat cut comprising:
a conveyor system drive controlled with a programmable logic controller to thereby control a conveyance of a carriage assembly along a debone processing line with a conveyor system to a tender removal debone cutting station where the carriage assembly including a poultry cone mount configured for a poultry item to be mounted thereon the poultry cone mount, where the tender removal debone cutting station includes a robotic arm assembly having a powered knife implement attached to the robotic arm, where the power knife implement has a circular ring shaped annular blade implement attached to and powered by the power knife implement;
a three dimensional vision system having a three dimensional image capturing sensor configured to capture a three dimensional image of the poultry item with the three dimensional vision system that is coupled to the computer configured with executable program instructions to derive a three dimensional data set from the three dimensional image with an image processing engine processing at a computer and an electronic storage configured to store said data set on an electronic memory of the computer, where the data set is representative of a surface contour, shape, size, geometry, volume, and distinctive local features and structures of the captured three dimensional image of the poultry item;
said computer configured with executable program instructions to categorize parts of the data set based on distinctive local features and structures, thereby determining structures and corresponding locations including a keel structure and a keel location, the tender meat portion and a tender meat portion location, and an entry point location adjacent the keel location;
said computer configured with executable program instructions to determine a cut path based on the data set and the distinctive local features and structures and the locations of the distinctive local features and structures; and
said robotic arm and the attached power knife implement communicably coupled with a programmable logic controller having executable program instructions to thereby control and articulate the robotic arm and the attached power knife implement to thereby cause the circular ring shaped annular blade implement of the power knife implement to traverse the cut path thereby severing the tender meat portion away from the keel bone and the boney sheath behind the tender meat portion.