Recipient Organization
MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIV
(N/A)
MISSISSIPPI STATE,MS 39762
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
As one of the most important freshwater fish species, catfish has a high nutritional value and can be processed into various products including fillets, nuggets, strips, etc. Individually quick frozen (IQF) is an important operation for fish production. This instant freezing process inhibits the large-size ice crystal formation in cells which otherwise would cause damage to membranes at the molecular level; it facilitates the preservation of high-quality food to a far extent in terms of its original shape, color, smell, and taste. Products kept in deep-frozen conditions will maintain their quality during storage, transportation, and distribution. While preparing fish products for IQF, agglomerations of the products must be individually separated. This demands significant manual interference in the IQF preparation process to separate individual products in the processing line. In addition to being separated, catfish fillets need to be orientated, due to their long thin shape, with head-front and tail-rear. Otherwise, the tail section might become stuck in the gaps between the conveyor belts or bed plates, thereby causing downtimes and productivity reductions. Moreover, fish fillets' top and bottom orientations will affect freezing quality in the subsequent IQF process. With the inside-down, frozen catfish fillets may stick firmly to the conveyor belt, and removing these fillets can lead to unacceptable yield losses. Therefore, catfish fillets must be placed inside-up. Clearly, the singulation and orientation processes require extensive manual efforts, which contribute substantially to the labor costs for fish processing. Unfortunately, existing singulation systems cannot be readily adopted for catfish fillets. The common singulation systems, such as high-speed conveyor belt systems and rotary singulation, cannot adjust the orientations of catfish fillets. Due to their soft texture, catfish fillets may be damaged in some singulation systems, such as clocking systems, vibration feeders, and pick-and-place systems. Thus, it is imperative to improve the automation level of the catfish fillets IQF preparation process to reduce labor demands and costs, and enhance catfish industry profitability.Our long-term goal is to fully automate the IQF preparation process to enhance the processing efficiency for catfish and beyond. In this project, our overall objective is to investigate the feasibility of using water buoyancy and underwater streams through innovative engineering design and prototyping, combined with advanced machine vision technology, for automated singulation and orientation of catfish fillets. Our proposed research is need-driven because there is currently a lack of automated singulation and orientation systems designed and optimized for catfish fillets and the IQF preparation process. The rationale underlying the proposed research lies in the unique capabilities of a water-based system using buoyant force and thrust force designs of controlled underwater streams, machine vision technology for the recognition and localization of catfish fillets, and engineering design prototyping and integration processes. Water can be a reliable, safe, and cheap tool for handling catfish fillets as utilized in shrimp production. The sinking and lifting process can separate and unfold the catfish fillets without damage. The air blowing can be applied for dewatering to minimize the water-absorbing effect during the sinking and lifting processes. The conveyors can be designed and equipped with orientation mechanisms to realize the flipping motions of the catfish fillets. The system proposed in this grant will be a novel effective modality for preparing the IQF process of catfish fillets. This research will facilitate the development of next-generation, more effective singulation, orientation, and IQF technologies for the U.S. catfish industry.Among widely consumed fish species in the U.S., catfish ranked 8th in per capita consumption in 2019. Mississippi ranked 1st in catfish production in 2021. However, the U.S. catfish industry is shrinking and facing great challenges because of international market competition and increasing production costs. The outbreak of COVID-19 revealed a sharp deficiency in the labor force for the entire catfish industry, which has relied on manual labor for various processing operations. Mandatory lockdowns severely disrupted the seafood supply chains and labor access. The tightening labor market has resulted in the delay of not only catfish processing but also production and distribution. For U.S. catfish processors to stay profitable and competitive, it is imperative to increase the level of automation for processing operations such as IQF preparation process. Presently, each processing facility needs 6-10 laborers for the manual catfish fillet IQF preparation process, implying that automating the process would potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual labor costs per processing line (6-10 class one entry level unskilled laborers work 52 weeks per year and 40 hours per week at a $10 hourly rate). The automation technology to be developed in the proposed research will have the tremendous potential to benefit the U.S. catfish processor by minimizing labor dependence and costs. The research results will be presented at scientific conferences and submitted to journals. Meanwhile, we will keep industry stakeholders (primarily catfish processors) in the feedback loop through outreach activities such as processor interactions, on-site demonstrations and instructional videos. The feedback information gathered from stakeholders will be used for future assessment of the financial impact and potential investment return.
Animal Health Component
20%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
40%
Applied
20%
Developmental
40%
Goals / Objectives
Objective #1: Develop a machine vision-based automated catfish fillet IQF preparation platform.Objective #2: Evaluate and optimize the singulation and unfolding performances.Objective #3: Evaluate and optimize the turning, dewatering, and flipping performance.
Project Methods
The rationale underlying the proposed research lies in the unique capabilities of a water-based system using buoyant force and thrust force designs of controlled underwater streams, machine vision technology for the recognition and localization of catfish fillets, and engineering design prototyping and integration processes.We will investigate the utility of water buoyancy and underwater stream, and conveyor designs, layouts, and combinations, as novel potential methods for creating automated singulation and orientation processes. Computer vision algorithms and deep learning models will be developed to detect and localize the targeted (separated and unfolded) fish fillets, with anticipated recognition rates of 95% or higher. The quantitative measure of the singulation and unfolding performance will be calculated in terms of the percentages of the separated and unfolded catfish fillets, with the 50-80% singulation rate expected to be achieved (drop one batch of catfish fillets into the water tank) by optimizing vision algorithms and operational control parameters.The dewatering process will be expected to remove the water-absorbing effect of the sinking and lifting process. The specified conveyor and air-vacuum gripper designs and settings will be expected to carry out the flipping and turning motions. Recommended engineering practices are expected to be developed as design guidelines for different production scales. The targeted throughput goal is 20,000-30,000 pieces of catfish fillets per hour to meet the need of IQF freezers.