DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER VISION AND GRAPPLE MECHANISM TO IMPROVE POULTRY WELFARE ACROSS LIFE CYCLE THROUGH AUTONOMOUS ROBOTIC SOLUTIONS.

There is a critical need for automated mortality removal systems to reduce labor requirements and provide consistent/satisfactory removal performance to improve grower productivity and bird husbandry. This proposal aligns with the USDA Strategic Goal 2: Maximize the Ability of American Producers to Proposer by Feeding the World.This project aims to develop the FOX Robot (Fowl Observation and Extraction), an autonomous poultry robot that performs dead bird retrieval in an economic manner for poultry farmers. During Phase I, Birds Eye Robotics' R&D efforts will focus on selecting and optimizing key computer vision factors to improve autonomous navigation and dead bird retrieval in populated barns, namely, stereo-camera angles, frame rates, database-enabled algorithms and the associated grapple mechanism.The technical goal of this phase one Small Business Innovation Research Grant is to develop computer vision technology and mechanical grapple to enable autonomous dead-bird retrieval capabilities given unique poultry barn considerations. This goal is divided into four objectives with technical questions in italic:1) Develop forward-facing computer vision design and software within populated barns2) Develop and refine mortality recognition algorithms throughout entire bird life cycle3) Develop image recognition to distinguish between 'cull' (i.e. birds that may be injured or immobilized) and dead birds4) Identify and prototype optimal grapple and retrieval hardware mechanism