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Researchers are developing the “world’s first” artificially intelligent sensor system to clean food manufacturing equipment more precisely and save the industry up to £100 million a year.
To prevent contamination, food manufacturers typically use a non-invasive Clean-in-Place (CIP) system that uses chemicals, heat and water to clean pipes that transport food products around factories. For a medium-sized dairy, cleaning typically costs £1 million a year, with loss of production time responsible for at least half of that cost.
Researchers believe that use of the Self-Optimising-Clean-in-Place system (SOCIP) in such a dairy could reduce annual water usage by 270,000 litres and energy consumption by 2,400MWh, giving savings of £300,000 a year.
Engineers from industry supplier Martec of Whitwell, the University of Nottingham and Loughborough University are designing and building an experimental rig to reproduce common industrial cleaning problems in a typical food-processing plant. SOCIP will measure precisely how much food residue and microbial debris is left inside the rig.
The team will also test a combination of ultrasonic sensing and optical fluorescence imaging technologies in comparison with existing detection methods.
Dr Nik Watson, assistant professor and chemical engineer specialising in food measurement systems at the University of Nottingham, said: “Due to the technical complexity of sensor integration, such an artificial intelligence (AI) solution does not yet exist. The aim of the SOCIP project is to overcome these technical barriers and reduce cleaning time and resource use by 20-40%.”
The year-long study will develop bespoke software to process the sensor data results and generate algorithms for an AI-based monitoring system. This self-predicting system will be able to autonomously optimise the cleaning process in plant and equipment in real time.
Once operational, SOCIP will require no special expertise and will use off-the-shelf electronic components.
The research team said the technology could one day be retrofitted to existing or new CIP systems. SOCIP could also help cut costs in other process sectors such as pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.