Robots are slowly but surely creeping into various aspects of our everyday life, including the workspace. Well, it seems that soon the job of deboning raw meat in freezing temperatures might be handed over to robots – after all, the HAMDAS-R has been rather successful in trials, capable of deboning up to 500 pork ham thighs each hour using the help of X-rays. The HAMDAS-R will sport a knife on the end of an extremely maneuverable robotic arm, where springs on either side of the blade will mimic the suppleness of human wrist movement. The springs will enable the knife to closely follow the contours of the bone and the ‘grain’ of the meat, helping increase overall efficiency without having to “train” it.
Since no pork thigh is the same, skilled human workers have been required to do this job – until now, that is. The use of X-rays enable the robot to accurately detect the shape of the joint, working to get as close to the bone as possible. It still isn’t as skilled as a human, but the low level of waste meat created by human workers is being approached.
At least this robot won’t get fatigued, and will not be exposed to viruses or bacteria in the meat if there are any, and can operate in freezing temperatures without missing a beat.