Robotics in food manufacturing

Summary form only given. Over the past decade, interest in the use of robotic technology has grown in the food sector. Meat, fish and poultry processing present important challenges both from the engineering and business view points. Automating the complete production cycle, from raw materials to finished and packaged goods has been achieved only in a few sectors of the food industry. Use of robotics technology provides a means for automatic inspection, handling, packaging, cutting and general processing of products in circumstances where flexibility and adaptability are considered important. Automating the 'skills' associated with tasks currently performed by people requires a detailed knowledge of the processes and, in many cases, considerable improvements to robotics must be achieved. Where the conditions are harsh or indeed dangerous for people to work in, automation is clearly the solution. The level of sophistication of the automation technology would however depend on the task and the nature of the environment. It is also conceivable that some products cannot be manufactured without the use of robotics.