Non-destructive detection of chicken egg gender and viable embryos based on eggshell terahertz properties

我们在本财政年度（2021年4月至2021年10月）进行了几次实验。有些实验是新的（蛋壳和孵化研究），有些实验是在太赫兹区域（0.5 ~ 2.0太赫兹）对蛋壳光学特性进行重复性实验，以解释鸡蛋壳的生物学现象以及母鸟年龄和品种的依赖性。我们还利用电子显微镜对蛋壳进行了超微结构成像。我们获得了一些基本的发现，这些发现在2021年日本农业机械和食品工程师学会（JSAM）第79届年度科学会议上发表。结果表明，孵蛋和未孵蛋的蛋壳折射率等光学性质存在明显差异，雏鸟和高龄雏鸟的蛋壳存在明显差异。太赫兹区域的折射率表示蛋壳的密度。基于以上观察，可以开发基于蛋壳光学特性和微观结构的母鸟健康状态监测的基于深度学习的非破坏性协议跟踪系统。

We conducted several experiments during this fiscal year, April 2021 to October 2021. Some of the experiments were new (eggshell and incubation studies) and some for repeatability on optical properties of eggshell in Terahertz Region (0.5-2.0 THz) to interpret biological phenomena of chicken eggshell and dependence of mother bird age and breed. We also took eggshell ultra-structure using electronic microscopic image. We obtained several fundamental findings which was presented in Japan Society of Agricultural Machinery and Food Engineers (JSAM) 79th annual scientific conference in 2021. We found clear and significant difference of eggshell optical properties like refractive index of incubated and non-incubated eggshell, difference between eggs from older parent flock and eggs from younger flock. The refractive index in terahertz region indicates the density of eggshell. Based on the above observation, it was possible to develop a deep learning based non-destructive protocol on mother birds tracing system for their health status monitoring based on eggshell optical properties and micro-structure.