Assessing Meat Quality
New Zealand has a unique place in the international red meat market thanks to its beef and lamb of the highest quality.
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Unfortunately, existing methods to detect meat qualities are mechanical or chemical and often destructive and slow with huge sampling errors. There is a clear need for fast sub-surface sensing of meat for real time quality checking.
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Polarisation sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography (PS-OCT) is a new, fast, non-contact, non-destructive imaging technique that provides a solution by measuring meat attributes up to a few millimeters deep in tissues as opaque as meat. Our research is aimed at predicting the intramuscular fat (IMF) percentage and tenderness by studying the attenuation and birefringence of meat. Real time prediction models are built by combining chemo metrics and machine learning techniques with OCT.
Funding and collaborators
Dr Cameron Craigie
Connect with us
Associate Professor Frederique Vanholsbeeck
In addition to developing state-of-the-art imaging capabilities, Frederique has successfully worked towards improving the OCT technique. In particular the development of original signal processing methods using OCT to identify tissues of different natures, adding a layer of functional information to the structural image. Visit the link to contact Frederique.
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​Useful links
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