UK-China Agritech Challenge: Envirobot An autonomous roving platform for environment, health and welfare monitoring of poultry

中国的家禽业正在快速实现现代化，但在这个过程中，在生产设施内控制温度和其他关键参数方面遇到了严重的问题。目前在中国(以及其他地方)的设施中使用的技术无法实现有效的监测，从而无法优化温度控制或任何其他相关的环境因素。缺乏最佳的居住条件不仅是一个禽类健康和福利问题，也是中国家禽生产力损失的一个非常重要的成本来源。在次优条件下饲养鸡意味着，与提供更理想的环境相比，这种鸡的体重需要更多的饲料。即使是很小的饲料减少，也可以对生产力产生显著的积极影响。更好的条件也将降低鸟类患病和死亡的风险。因此，对于拥有该领域专业知识的英国组织来说，存在着与中国合作伙伴合作开发适当解决方案的重大机会，这将特别有助于提高中国家禽行业的生产率。此外，这也将是解决中国目前家禽业声誉不佳的一步。开发的解决方案将适用于世界其他国家，也可能在其他畜牧业中使用。因此，这对英国和中国来说都是一个极好的出口机会。目前，世界各地的家禽设施都是用几个有线传感器建造的，可以提供家禽舍内的基本温度分布。提出的是让一个自主机器人在设施周围移动，在它移动的同时连续捕捉数据，并在设施内从最低笼子到最高笼子的不同高度对环境进行采样。由于机器人的导航知识，它将能够绘制数据，提供鸟类暴露在其中的所有参数的三维视图，包括温度、湿度、空气速度、二氧化碳，还将配备机载摄像头，以便对条件和潜在的鸟类进行视觉评估。此外，基于目前的原型“电子鼻”的传感器系统的开发将使有关疾病存在的数据第一次被捕获。结合所有收集的数据将允许进行评估，不仅在鸟类出现症状之前检测疾病，而且通过交叉参考所有环境数据将允许进行预测建模，并可能第一次允许中国家禽养殖者预防鸟类疾病，改善鸟类福利，鸟类性能，并在某种程度上重建消费者对产品的信心。该项目的商业案例中的一个关键合作伙伴是英国的应用家禽，它已经分析了来自全球家禽企业的数据，并将其转化为更好的知识和信息。一旦该项目完成，目的是继续合作，由应用家禽进行一些数据分析。机器人技术支持将来自罗斯机器人公司。中国农民将拥有一个仪表盘来实时分析他们的设施，一些知识共享将允许学术合作伙伴(英国和/或中国)继续参与并从这样一个项目中获得未来的信息。由于这项提议是为了监测笼子里的鸟，我们看不到为什么开发的机器人/传感器/仪表板/数据分析不能被认为适合全球笼养蛋鸡，尽管可能需要不同的疾病传感器阵列

The poultry industry in China is modernising at a fast pace, but in the process is encountering significant problems with controlling temperature and other key parameters within their production facilities. The technologies currently used in facilities in China (and often elsewhere) do not enable effective monitoring and thus optimisation of temperature control or any other relevant environmental factors. Lack of optimal housing conditions is not only a bird health and welfare issue, but also a source of very significant cost to the Chinese poultry in terms of lost productivity. Rearing chickens in sub-optimal conditions means that weight for weight, such birds require more feed than if provided with a more optimal environment. Even a very small reduction in feed can have a significant positive effect on productivity. Better conditions will also reduce the risk of disease and mortality to the birds. A significant opportunity therefore exists for UK based organisations, with expertise in this field, to collaborate with Chinese partners to develop an appropriate solution, which will in particular effect an increase in productivity within the poultry sector in China. Furthermore, it will also be a step forward in addressing the currently poor reputation of the poultry industry in China. The solution developed will have applicability in other countries around the world and may also have a use in other livestock industries. Therefore, it is an example of an excellent export opportunity for both the UK and China. Currently poultry facilities worldwide are constructed with a few wired sensors giving a basic temperature profile in the poultry house. What is proposed is for an autonomous robot to move around the facility capturing data continuously as it moves around and sampling the environment at various heights within the facility, from the lowest cage to the highest cage. Due to the navigation knowledge of the robot it will be able to plot the data giving a 3 dimensional view of all the parameters that the birds are exposed to, to include temperature, humidity, air velocity, CO2 and will also have an on-board camera to allow visual assessment of the conditions and potentially the birds. In addition the development of a sensor system which is based on a current prototype "e-nose" will allow data regarding the presence of disease to be captured for the first time.Combining all the data gathered will allow assessments to be carried out that not only detects diseases before symptoms are seen in the birds, but by cross referencing all the environmental data will allow for predictive modelling to occur and potentially for the first time allow the Chinese poultry farmer to prevent sickness in their birds, improving bird welfare, bird performance and go some way to re-building consumer confidence in the product.One key partner in the business case for this project is Applied Poultry in the UK, which already analyse data from global poultry businesses and turning it into better knowledge and information.Once the project is completed the aim is for collaboration to continue with some data analysis being conducted by Applied Poultry. Robotics support will come from Ross Robotics. The Chinese farmers will have a dashboard for live real time analysis of their facilities and some knowledge sharing will allow the academic partners (UK and/or China) to remain involved and gaining future information from such a project.As this proposal is for monitoring birds in cages we can see no reason why the developed robots/sensors/dashboard/data analysis cannot be considered appropriate for caged laying hens globally, although a different disease sensor arrays may be required