Abstract: A bird is cut up by cutting free the fillets, that is the large portions of breast meat, loosening the wings, dislocating the thighs, and at the end removing as one piece a subassembly comprised of the thighs, the fillets, and the wings. More particularly the fillets are freed in two steps, namely first they are partially from the skeleton starting from the sternum, and then, after the wings have been loosened, the cut is completed. In addition the coracoids are cut between the two stages of fillet-freeing, and the pygostyle is ripped or cut off at the end of the process. The bird to be cut up is fixed on a holder that fits within the thoracic cavity of the bird and remains on this holder through all of above-described treatment steps.

Abstract: An apparatus for separating a soft material such as meat from a hard material such as bone has a generally stationary support and a holder that supports an object comprised of the hard and soft materials stationarily adjacent the support with an interface between the hard and soft material extending to a cutting plane. A chassis is pivotal on the support about a chassis axis transverse to the plane and an outer pulley is pivotal on the chassis remote from the support and generally tangent to the plane. A carriage displaceable on the support transversely of the plane pivotally suports an inner pulley pivotal on the carriage close to the support and spaced along the plane from the outer pulley. One of the pulleys is rotated to advance the chain.

Abstract: An apparatus for cutting a soft material, such as meat, from a hard material, such as bone, according to the invention has a chain formed of a succession of alternating cutting and coupling links extending along a longitudinal line. The cutting links are of generally polygonal cross-sectional shape and have corners forming longitudinally extending sharp cutting edges spaced a predetermined maximum transverse distance from the line. In addition the coupling links are of a predetermined maximum radial dimension from the line shorter than the distance such that the cutting edges project transversely beyond the coupling links and the cutting links are rotatable in the chain about the line. This chain is advanced in a longitudinal direction parallel to the line. Thus the cutting links will naturally pivot to lie flat on the hard material and slide therealong, neatly cutting along the hard/soft interface.

Abstract: An apparatus for feeding a piece of sheet material to a tool utilizes a set of grippers on telescoping arms of a mean trajectory control system for displacing the sheet material in accordance with a predetermined trajectory. Local correction is effected by passing the piece of sheet material between two discs, one of which is rotatable about a horizontal axis but swingable about a vertical axis while the other, on the opposite side of the sheet, is rotatable about a vertical axis coincident with the first vertical axis. A line is marked on the sheet material with a substance stimulated by ultraviolet and emits a wavelength to which photodetectors are responsive to control the local correction device.

Abstract: An apparatus for holding a gutted animal body having an empty body cavity that has an open end and a closed end has an elongated holder body having a front portion and a rear portion offset along a longitudinal axis of the holder body from the front portion. The portions are interconnected for relative axial displacement between an adjacent position and an axially extended position. A holder is provided on the front portion for engaging same in the closed end and another holder is provided on the rear portion for engaging same adjacent the open end when the holder of the front portion is engaged with the closed end. The system is operated such that, on engagement of the holder body in the body cavity with the portions in the adjacent position, the rear holder is engaged with the animal body adjacent the respective end, the front and rear portions are axially extended away from each other, and then the front holder is engaged with the respective cavity end.

Abstract: A digital-data-transmission system includes a network formed from a multiplicity of nodes each having at least three pairs of input/output terminals of which one is connected to an associated subscriber station while the others are connected to respective other nodes so as to enable a binary message from any subscriber station to reach all other subscriber stations. The nodes form a plurality of pathways, at least some of them of different lengths, between any two subscriber stations yet a decision circuit at each node selects only one input terminal thereof for retransmission of an incoming message to all the output terminals of the node, such selection being based on the order of arrival or--in the case of simultaneous arrival--on a predetermined order of preference. The several subscriber stations may be equipped with respective controllers establishing time slots individually allocated thereto in order to prevent the simultaneous emission of messages from two or more stations.

Abstract: A robot comprising a chain of members connected in pairs and mobile with respect to one another under the action of drive device controlled by a computer, each of the members being operative to drive a terminal member of the chain in a movement determined by a monitoring device controlling the computer, a single motor for selectively actuating, via a selection device controlled by the computer, each of the mobile members separately, and a single monitoring coder for selectively determining the movement of the mobile members.

Abstract: This disclosure describes a device for converting binary coded angle information into the analog angular position of the rotor winding of a conventional counter-reaction resolver. The device is operative to provide two periodic rectangular wave signals of equal amplitudes and of time durations respectively proportional to the absolute values of the sine and cosine of the angle. These periodic rectangular wave signals are respectively applied to the stator windings of the resolver via two amplifiers respectively. Each of these amplifiers comprises a counter-reaction loop comprising a compensation winding and a capacitor. The rotor winding of the resolver is inserted in a servocontrol loop comprising an amplifier and a commutator which are connected only in the simultaneous absence of the two periodical rectangular wave signals.