Device for positioning fish

摘要

An apparatus for automatically positioning fish with respect to their plane of symmetry and for the periodic transfer of the fish to a fish processing machine is proposed. The apparatus comprises a supply conveyor in the form of a trough conveyor and a feed conveyor arranged below and essentially perpendicular to the supply conveyor for feeding the fish into the processing machine. The feed conveyor includes a support conveyor equipped with support elements onto which each fish is placed with the support elements protruding into the belly cavity. This is achieved by a holding element which is arranged between the supply conveyor and the feed conveyor and is controlled by a signal to open and release the temporarily held fish. The generation of the signal is varied according to a measurement value representing the size of the fish being positioned so that each fish is released to land exactly positioned with its belly cavity on a support element irrespective of its size.