Egg sector seeing gradual artificial vision benefits

Artificial vision has a growing role in the egg sector and the benefits are gradually accruing.

Bigedhar | BigStockPhoto.com
Bigedhar | BigStockPhoto.com

Artificial vision has already entered the egg sector and as its adoption becomes more widespread numerous efficiencies will be achieved.

If vision comes naturally to us, creating machines to mimic the performance of the human eye has been a rather complex development.  

From its humble beginnings in Bell Labs, New Jersey, where researchers were trying to find ways to read numbers and letters on cheques and mail for faster processing, computer, or artificial, vision has evolved into a fully-fledged business with a wide range of applications.  

However, a machine does not see like us and, after some training, it will rely on the analysis of just small portions of an image (pixels) to decide what it “sees”.  

The complexity of this artificial vision process is best exemplified by the fact that changing a few pixels in a photo will make the computer see an ostrich rather than a school bus, even though the new image still looks the same to the human eye. Scientists have perfected these visual recognition systems to such an extent that artificial vision is now used by the egg sector, both for research and in commercial applications.

In research, artificial vision has entered the layer barn and is a great resource for scientists studying bird welfare and behavior.  Cameras linked to devices tagging each hen individually are recording their daily activities, the time spent outside or perching inside the barn. Once analyzed through the power of artificial vision models, scientists can identify clusters of hens with similar behavior and needs.  

Artificial vision will also, at some point, allow us to detect live any sign of discomfort and lesser welfare.  At the hatcheries, the use of methods relying on artificial vision systems combined with the analytical power of artificial intelligence will accelerate the full potential of in-ovo sexing. 

Egg packing

In egg packing stations, the cleanliness of eggs is now monitored by artificial vision systems where dirty eggs or imperfect shape of shells are detected and automatically segregated.  

These vision systems can detect defects at a much faster speed than what the human eyes can handle. Grading plants now routinely process eggs at a speed of about 70 eggs per second, rather than 30 eggs, which tends to be the maximum when relying on the human eye for inspection.   

Similar gains in efficiencies and quality have also been realized during the inspection of eggs in egg processing plants.  In the future, it will be possible to sort eggs by weight using vision systems rather than scales. These systems will be able to operate at even greater speed with simpler maintenance and calibration for the egg grading machines.   

With a greater adoption of artificial vision, the egg sector has much to gain, both in terms of efficiencies and optimization of the conditions and resources needed for the health and well-being of our hens.          

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