Ultrasound data acquisition system design for collecting high quality RF data from beef carcasses in the slaughterhouse environment

Ultrasound has considerable potential to accurately and precisely grade beef. The ultimate goal is an automated and objective grading process. The current phase of the work does not involve construction of an ultrasound grading device but rather the determination of which of these ultrasound-related and derived quantities best correlate to each grade. In order to make this determination, an ultrasound data acquisition system capable of acquiring large amounts of high-quality RF data from beef carcasses has been constructed. The engineering concepts and construction details of an ultrasound data acquisition device to be used as a research tool for this application are presented