This podcast highlights interdisciplinary research on a current four-year project that is being sponsored by the USDA. It is a collaboration among GTRI, Georgia Tech, Fort Valley State University, University of Arkansas and University of Nebraska. Its goal is to help modernize the poultry processing industry through novel forms of automation, the need for which has been dramatically demonstrated by the pandemic. Georgia is by far the US’s largest poultry producer. Poultry is a billion-dollar industry in the state and this project aligns with GTRI’s commitment to serve Georgia.

The project has four research objectives: (1) intelligent automation of poultry deboning, (2) virtual reality telepresence to enable human-robot collaboration on the plant floor, (3) intelligent automation of poultry plant sanitation and health, and (4) determination of the societal impacts of automating traditional manual jobs. Recent advances in robot hardware, sensors and artificial intelligence capabilities will be fully leveraged. The project has potentially global ramifications.