Future of Poultry Processing Includes Automation, Robotics and Virtual Reality Headsets
Teams of scientists and engineers adapt technologies that integrate robotics and human assistance with virtual reality
By John Lovett – Sept. 23, 2025
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Robotics, virtual reality and artificial intelligence could be game changers for poultry processors following promising results in research to integrate those technologies, according to Jeyam Subbiah, a professor of food science specializing in food safety engineering with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.
When grocery store shelves went short of chicken products during the COVID-19 pandemic due to labor shortages, scientists like Subbiah got to thinking, “How could AI and robotics help?”
“While the pandemic amplified the problem, the labor shortage in the poultry industry is a persistent challenge,” Subbiah said. “The jobs are physically demanding. It’s cold. It’s humid. The tasks are repetitive and potentially risky, and the turnover rate in the first 90 days can be as high as 50 percent.”
A twist on the robotics technology that has been used in other industrial settings is integrating human assistance with virtual reality headsets and artificial intelligence connected to robotic arms in the poultry processing facility.
“The poultry plant of the future can enable remote work and allow the robot to collaborate with the human and use that as a database to develop AI algorithms,” Subbiah said.
Another major challenge for poultry processors is maintaining food safety, including sanitization and finding and removing foreign materials like plastics and bone chips in the packaged meat, Subbiah added.
In 2023, Subbiah became the director of a four-year, $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to develop the Center for Scalable and Intelligent Automation in Poultry Processing.
The center has a team of partners at the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Fort Valley State University in Georgia. The experiment station is the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
Subbiah and his fellow researchers have shown promising results in adapting the technologies to poultry processing. Developments in the grant-funded research include the following successes:
- Teaching volunteer poultry processing employees to use virtual reality headsets and controllers to remotely assist robotic end effectors, or the robotic “hands.” With the equipment connected to the internet, an operator remotely guides the robotic arm at a poultry processing facility to place chicken carcasses on cones for further processing.
- Improving the accuracy of robotic deboning machines with artificial intelligence.
- Programming an autonomous vehicle with a robotic arm to assess the effectiveness of sanitation.
- Using an inexpensive thermal imaging camera to detect foreign materials in packaged meat.
- Using AI and hyperspectral imaging to detect a quality defect called “woody breast.” Hyperspectral imaging “sees” across the electromagnetic spectrum, beyond the visible wavelengths humans can perceive.
Dongyi Wang, an assistant professor in the biological and agricultural engineering department for the experiment station, has been integral in developing the noninvasive method of hyperspectral imaging to detect “woody breast” with an accuracy of 98 percent. Wang, who also has an appointment in food science, also led the development of the autonomous vehicle to detect pathogens in a processing facility.
“Adapting the technologies may be possible for processing of other meat species such as goats and sheep,” Subbiah said.
In addition to Subbiah and Wang, the project’s management team includes Doug Britton, Ai-Ping Hu, and Konrad Ahlin with Georgia Tech, Brou Kouakou with Fort Valley State University, and Julia McQuillan with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Arkansas’ research team includes food science professors Kristen Gibson and Philip Crandall, and poultry science professors Casey Owens and Tomi Obe. Gibson, Obe and Owens are also affiliated with the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science, and Gibson is director of the Arkansas Center for Food Safety.
To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on 𝕏 at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on 𝕏 at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three campuses.
Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.
PATHOGEN DETECTIVE — An autonomous robot that takes swabs and analyzes them for pathogens in a poultry processing facility was developed by the Arkansas team of the Center for Scalable and Intelligent Automation in Poultry Processing, a project supported by USDA-NIFA. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo)
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