Design And Implementation Of Terminal For Snowflakes Beef Carcass Quality Measurement System Based On Embedded And Machine Vision

Snowflakes beef is the hight-quality beef, it contains a lot of unsaturated fatty acids which are needed for human, and its cholesterol level is much lower than most cuts of beef. Researches demonstrated that technologies of machine vision and image analysis could predict beef quality related evaluation indexes effectively, and the results of measurement were more objective and accurate. There are some kinds of theoretical significance and practical application value with studying the method of objective measurement in snowflakes beef quality grade.With the development of computer and microelectronic technology, embedded systems are widely used in various fields increasingly. Embedded technology and machine vision technology are combined to be applied to the area of snowflakes beef carcass quality measurement, that can reduce the volume of the equipment effectively, and promote the development of equipment to the portable, compact direction.Depending on the modern agricultural industry (beef cattle) system project (item number is nycytx-38) and the agricultural research achievements conversion project (item number is SQ2011ECC100043) in ministry of agriculture of China, the present situations of beef quality measurement equipments at home and abroad were studied. The functions and needs of the equipment were determined according to the segmentation environment of snowflakes beef carcass. At last, a portable terminal device which includes the functions of image acquisition and wireless transmission was developed.Development work on the terminal included:selection and design of embedded platform, image acquisition module, wireless transmission module, light source module and other modules; building up the environment of embedded Linux and Qt/Embedded, cutting the kernel and transplanting some drives; developing the software system which is consisted of image acquisition subroutine, Socket communication subroutine and man-machine interface subroutine. The terminal, based on OMAP3530, could be used to capture the ribs section related images by CCD industrial camera, also could be used to transmit image data to PC server and receive the grading results form PC server by WiFi technology. At the same time, the terminal was displayed to the users by friendly man-machine interface.Two particular demonstration plots were chosen for related experiments in QinBao Animal Husbandry, Ltd in Shanxi province and XueLong Industry Group in Dalian city. The experiment results demonstrated that the handheld terminal could be operated steadily and easily under the local condition. This device would probably improve the objectivity and the accuracy of measuring snowflakes beef quality grade in China.