On the controlling of temperature: A proposal for a real-time controller in broiler houses

Abstract

Environmental conditions in broiler houses, specifically temperature, are key factors that should be controlled to ensure appropriate environment for broiler rearing. In countries with tropical/subtropical climate, like Brazil, high temperatures produce heat stress to animals, affecting the production process. This research proposes a real-time model to control temperature inside broiler houses. The controller is a self-correcting model that makes real-time decisions on the ventilation system operation (exhaust fans) together with temperature prediction at the facility. The model involves partial differential equations (PDE) whose parameters are updated according to data registered in real-time. Some experiments were carried out at a pilot farm in the municipality of Jundiaí, São Paulo State, Brazil, for different periods during winter and summer. The results based on simulations in comparison with the current automatic ventilation system show that the model is consistent to keep temperature under control for an efficient production. The model achieved a bias of 0.6 °C on average in comparison with the ideal temperature, whereas the automatic controller measured a bias of 3.3 °C, respectively. Future lines suggest that this approach could be useful in many other situations that involve environmental control for livestock production.

Energy, Production and Environmental Characteristics of a Conventional Weaned Piglet Farm in North West Spain

“…At similar outdoor temperatures, the comparison of saturated and non-saturated cycles revealed that improved humidity management led to a saving of 17% in climate control energy during one cycle, which involved savings between 33% and 47% in energy consumption per kg of pig produced. Recent research points to the incorporation of advanced estimation techniques into complex control systems to achieve energy savings [24,29,30,42,43], or to the use of a large number of sensors in advanced technologies in order to consider animal welfare [44]. Yet, farms currently use control systems based on a single temperature probe.…”

“…Particularly, postweaning facilities consist of many rooms, which requires installing a large amount of measurement and control devices on a single farm. Yet, environmental control has commonly been based on the use of data from a single temperature probe [24,25], whereas other variables such as humidity [26] or CO 2 [27,28] are of increasing interest because of their impact on swine production [29] and must be included in automation. A good control strategy can prevent some delayed control effects caused by time lags of devices and provide an expected in-time indoor thermal environment control [30].…”

Role of Artificial Intelligence in Livestock and Poultry Farming

“…Farmers can measure feed intake for individual cows and manage feed costs based on the demands of their animals with the help of RGB-D cameras (Detsch et al, 2018). We can precisely predict farm animal performance with the use of technology.…”

Analyzing and Modeling Environmental and Production Variables in Weaned Piglet Farms

“…Accordingly, incorporating humidity as a control variable could contribute to improving the environmental controls in these buildings [117] by reducing the high humidity levels that result in condensation and are detrimental to heating efficiency [17,23]. Recent research points to the incorporation of advanced estimation techniques into complex control systems to achieve energy savings [113,114,[118][119][120], or to the use of a large number of sensors in advanced technologies in order to consider animal welfare [71,74,81,84,85,121]. Incorporating humidity as a control variable would involve higher ventilation rates, with positive consequences for animal welfare, a reduction in heating energy consumption and an improvement in productivity.…”