Preliminary study: ultrasonic-based detection system design for identifying pork in sausage products

Abstract Ensuring the absence of pork in processed meat products is crucial for halal compliance, especially in Muslim-majority countries. This study presents a preliminary evaluation of the design and performance of an ultrasonic-based detection system developed for rapid and non-destructive identification of pork content in sausage products. The system employs a 40 kHz ultrasonic transducer, a signal processing module, and a real-time user interface to capture the acoustic differences between pork and beef. Four parameters (wave velocity, attenuation, damping, and signal energy) were measured for 20 sausage samples (10 beef and 10 pork samples). Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference in wave velocity (p = 0.0024), with beef sausages exhibiting higher average values (80.76 m/s) than pork sausages (64.85 m/s). The signal energy approached significance (p = 0.098), whereas the other parameters showed no significant differences. These findings highlight the wave velocity as a promising indicator for pork detection. Future work will expand the sample size and refine the system to improve accuracy. Overall, the proposed method shows promise as a portable, cost-effective, and noninvasive tool for supporting halal verification in industrial and consumer applications.