Utility of the backscattered ultrasonic A-mode signal for the quantitative grading of beef

A feasibility study applicable to the IN VITRO differentiation of marbling in beef was conducted using signatures extracted from the A-mode backscattered ultrasonic signals. The energy and threshold count of these RF signals correlated well with the percentage of fat in beef sample determined by either extraction chemical test. As the value of n increases from 1 to 3 in the model for the amplitude attenuation in soft tissue, a(f) = aofn, the media of these values of n correspond from linear to nonlinear dependence of frequency in attenuation. This is observed to be analogous to beef with low to high marbling. The regressed gradient of the spectral differences between a reference spectrum from the sample with low percentage of fat and the spectra of other samples of increasing percentage of fat reveal an increase in gradient as the marbling increases. This phenomena is attributed to the change in the center frequency and the spectral bandwidth of a medium with changing physical scatterers' characteristic. These signatures, the energy, the threshold count and the gradient are then used to back predict the percentage of fat (marbling level).