An automated salmonid slaughter line using machine vision

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a new slaughter line for industrial slaughtering of salmonid fish. Traditionally, slaughtering of farmed salmonids – salmon and rainbow trout – was done manually by bleed cutting with knives. Using the new slaughter line that includes 3D machine vision and a bleed‐cutting robot, slaughtering is almost completely automated – nominally requiring only one person to supervise the line and manually bleed cut the fish not handled by the robot. Design/methodology/approach – The design approach of the salmonid slaughter line focuses on using 3D machine vision and a bleed‐cutting robot with four biaxial pneumatic actuators to handle the slaughtering of pre‐anesthetized salmon and rainbow trout. Findings – Under normal operating conditions, the slaughter line is capable of automatically slaughtering 85‐95 percent of all fish at an average feed rate of 30‐80 salmon/min, and the remaining 5‐15 percent are slaughtered manually. Several issues have been discovered, that should be addressed to improve the slaughter line. Originality/value – This paper presents a new complete salmonid slaughter line that has reduced the need for manual labor in salmonid slaughtering plants.