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RESEARCH NEWS
RoboChick: an autonomous roving monitoring platform collecting data in broiler sheds
Climate (temperature) control in poultry houses utilises standard environmental sensors in only a few locations, providing very
crude indoor climate information. As a result provision of optimal conditions to all birds is difficult to assess and even more difficult to achieve. An autonomous roving sensor platform would be an ideal solution to provide data at a high-density grid for the entire building.
RoboChick, a feasibility study, provided the design and operational parameters for the robot platform. The first challenge was to design and construct a prototype robot, based on the modular robot of Ross Robotics. During trials on commercial farms this prototype was altered to provide the best behavioural responses
of the broiler birds. This resulted in
the current main structure of the robot cover, e.g. a high wedge shape front
with a lower instrument bay at the rear (protected by railings from birds jumping onto the robot). This design successfully encourages the birds to move sideways out of the way of the robot.
Secondly, the long term responses of broilers to the robot, e.g. a full batch from day old chick to slaughter weight, were
investigated. We have shown successfully that it is possible to drive the robot through both a small semi-commercial (1,600 birds) and a fully commercial
flock (45,000 birds) of broilers (Ross
308 strain) almost up to the slaughter weight (up to day 36 of 39) under
manual control. The birds showed very little startling behaviour in response to
the robot and were quick to fill the area behind the robot as it moved past. Activity levels increased during robot runs, but
to a lesser extent than during walks by a human stockman.
The challenges of running the robot changed as the birds grew, with
many individuals coming into physical contact with the front of the robot later in the cycle. Despite this, very few
birds refused to move out of the way completely and mortality and production parameters remained acceptable throughout. The operational parameters for the autonomous platform (robot)
and the additional sensors required for save operation amongst the birds (bird welfare) were defined from these trials.
The autonomous navigation system was developed from the systems Ross Robotics used at the CERN Large
Hadron Collider in Geneva and included a novel ‘chicken’ sensor to ensure chickens coming into contract with the robot, but unable or unwilling to move out of the way, were avoided using a go-around routine for the robot.
The two-dimensional climate data collected by the robot during the large scale commercial trial, clearly made the case for using the robot to assess the uniformity of the climate conditions experienced by the flock of broilers. Large differences between the local conditions at bird level and the general shed sensors were found for temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide, thus providing a real time opportunity to improve the climate conditions for the flock.
A surprise finding during the commercial trial was an 8% improvement in the FCR of the flock, despite an increase in activity of the birds in the second half
of the growing cycle compared to the reference flock. The production results of the small-scale trial had hinted this might be the case and further commercial trials (further funding is being sought) will have to confirm these very positive findings for future commercialisation of the robot.
An early design (above) to final design (right) used in commercial trial Robot ‘Plucky’ during commercial trial fitted with sensors
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