Modeling & control of a meat-cutting robotic cell

In this paper, the modeling, simulation and control of a robotic meat cutting cell is described. A dual-arm system is used in the separation task, one arm cuts the meat along a deformable guide line while the second arm graps and pulls the meat to further increase the opening of the valley. The steps taken to model the cell in order to ensure a realistic interaction between the robots and the flexible object are outlined. A control scheme, using an external vision and force sensors, is proposed that copes with on-line object deformation. The proposed control scheme is validated using the simulator environment.

I. Introduction

The meat processing industry is the largest sector of the food industry in France accounting for over 25 % of the total employees and including over 2,000 companies [1]. However the industry is facing a shortage of skilled labor due to the both hazardous and strenuous working conditions. The ARMS ¹

www.arms.irccyn.ec-nantes.fr

project, A multi arms Robotic system for Muscle Separation, aims to contribute to the separation of beef rounds (hindquarters) by an autonomous robotic cell. A muti-arm system is proposed in order to deal with key challenges such as the variability of the target object and its deformable nature.