238 ECPLF Demmers 2022 Final Version After Review

Abstract

The Chinese poultry industry continues to use cages for growing both broiler and layer chickens in most commercial facilities with no plans to ban their use in the immediate future. In contrast, cages have been banned and are being phased out in Europe. In particular, broilers are and have been kept in large flocks on a littered floor. Both systems however, do have issues related to indoor environment, health and welfare. Various precision livestock farming (PLF) inspired systems have been developed to better monitor and thus improve the climatic conditions for floor based poultry systems (RoboChick, Octopus, ChickenBoy)
For the caged housing system, a large consortium of Chinese and UK industry and academia developed a dedicated autonomous data collection platform. The data platform combines robot technology with advanced sensors and indoor environmental management using real-time monitoring to maintain the best environmental and animal welfare conditions, improving production yield, and providing early detection of poultry disease and minimal anti-biotics use.
The prototype autonomous navigating robot was developed in the UK and fitted with the sensors and datalogging systems. A bespoke user interface was developed to map the environment the robot would be operating in and allow assignment of monitoring positions. The navigation systems were tested in a caged poultry facility in the UK and proven to be highly accurate and reliable in positioning the robot and avoiding obstacles essential for autonomous operation. The jointly developed monitoring systems were integrated with the platforms software and bespoke cloud based databases.

Citation

Demmers, T. (2022). 238 ECPLF Demmers 2022 Final Version After Review.

• Conference Name: 10th European Conference on Precision Livestock Farming
• Conference Location: Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien, Austria
• Start Date: Aug 29, 2022
• End Date: Sep 2, 2022
• Acceptance Date: Jun 15, 2022
• Publication Date: Aug 29, 2022
• Deposit Date: Nov 11, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 30, 2022
• Pages: 122-127
• ISBN: 978-83-965360-0-6
• Keywords: poultry, robotics, environment
• Publisher URL: www.dkh.com.pl/en