Patent ID: 9128810
Filing Date: 2015-09-08
Classification: A22C,B26D,B26F,G16Z

Abstract:
1. A method of automatically portioning a food workpiece into one or more final pieces, comprising: (a) designating target values or ranges of target values of one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics of the one or more final pieces; (b) designating one or more indirectly-controlled physical characteristics that result from the application to the food workpiece of the one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics of the one or more final pieces to be portioned from each food workpiece; (c) scanning the food workpiece to obtain scanning information; (d) simulating portioning the food workpiece according to one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics of the one or more final pieces; (e) calculating the values or ranges of values of the one or more indirectly-controlled physical characteristics of the one or more final pieces to be portioned resulting from applying the one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics to the scanned food workpiece; (f) repeating the simulating of the portioning of the food workpiece for multiple combinations of the one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics, and rating each combination based on how closely the combination achieves the desired target values or range of target values of the one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics and/or the target values or range of target values of the resulting one or more indirectly-controlled physical characteristics; (g) using one or more algorithms to select potentially acceptable one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics until an acceptable combination of one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics and one or more indirectly-controlled physical characteristics resulting from applying the one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics to the food workpiece are determined; (h) wherein each potential combination from steps (d) and (f) is rated according to an optimization algorithm as applied to one or more of the one or more directly-controlled and/or indirectly-controlled physical characteristics, with the optimization rating of the one or more directly-controlled and/or indirectly-controlled physical characteristics related to the deviation of the one or more directly-controlled and/or indirectly-controlled physical characteristics from an ideal physical characteristic target value or range of target values; (i) wherein said optimization algorithm functions to select an acceptable combination of one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics and/or one or more indirectly-controlled physical characteristics within a limited number of iterations without having to consider all possible combinations of target values of or ranges of target values of one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics and the target values or ranges of target values of one or more indirectly-controlled physical characteristics that result from applying the one or more directly-controlled physical characteristics to the food workpiece; and (j) portioning the workpiece according to the combination of physical characteristics as determined in steps (h) and (i) above.