Automated screening for pathologies at abattoir through computer vision based inspection of pig carcasses

胴体的目视检验是保证肉制品质量的一个重要因素。然而，人工检查给肉类检查员的资源带来压力，这实际上妨碍了详细的检查，例如，为了卫生计划的目的。本项目的目的是开发一种在屠宰场进行视觉筛选的自动化系统。该系统将分析在屠宰场拍摄的图像，以检测猪尸体上的一些健康危害，并在屠宰场对它们进行筛查，以发现潜在的亚临床疾病迹象。该项目将：(1)开发捕获胴体图像的系统；(2)获取图像数据集，由专家对其中的病理进行标注；(3)开发学习自动识别病理的软件；(4)在大型数据集上验证该系统，以检测常规健康危害，并将结果传播给相关用户，包括向农民提供反馈。该项目汇集了肉类生产的市场领导者（Tulip）和屠宰场供应商（Hellenic），猪税委员会（BPEX），英国领先的猪科学研究中心（纽卡斯尔大学），以及计算机视觉和模式识别专家（纽卡斯尔大学和邓迪大学）。它将增强检测猪尸体健康危害的信心，旨在自动检测潜在的亚临床疾病。将这些反馈给养猪户将通过预防进一步的疾病来提高生产力和农场效率。生产者将能够通过从屠宰场获得的信息，做出改善牛群健康状况的决定。因此，该项目将有助于英国养猪业的可持续性和竞争力。

Visual inspection of carcasses is an important factor for ensuring the quality of meat products. However, manual inspection puts a strain on meat inspector resources, which effectively prevents detailed screening as, for example, for the purposes of health schemes. The aim of this project is to develop an automated system for visual screening at abattoir. The system will analyse images taken at abattoir in order to detect a number of health hazards on pig carcasses, and to screen them at slaughter for indications of underlying subclinical diseases. The project will: (1) develop a system for capturing images of carcass; (2) acquire image data sets and have experts annotate pathologies in them; (3) develop software that learns to recognise pathologies automatically; (4) validate the system on large scale datasets for the detection of routine health hazards, and disseminate results to relevant users, incl. providing feedback to farmers. The project brings together market leaders in meat production (Tulip) and supplier for abattoirs (Hellenic), pig levy board (BPEX), the UK’s leading centre for research into pig science (Newcastle Univ.), and experts in computer vision and pattern recognition (Newcastle Univ. and Univ. of Dundee). It will enhance confidence in detecting health hazards in pig carcasses, aiming towards automated detection of underlying subclinical disease. Feeding this back to pig farmers will increase productivity and improve efficiency on farms through preventing further diseases. Producers will be able to make decisions about improving the health of their herd through the information they receive from the abattoir. The project will thus contribute towards sustainability and competitiveness of the UK pig Industry.