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

中英农业科技挑战赛：Envirobot 用于家禽环境、健康和福利监测的自主流动平台

基本信息

批准号：
BB/S020829/1
负责人：
Siobhan Abeyesinghe
金额：
$ 33.97万
依托单位：
Royal Veterinary College
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2019
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2019 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FS020829%2F1
关键词：
UK China Agritech Challenge Envirobot

项目摘要

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

中国的家禽业正在快速现代化，但在此过程中，在控制生产设施内的温度和其他关键参数方面遇到了重大问题。目前在中国（以及其他地方）的设施中使用的技术无法进行有效的监控，从而无法优化温度控制或任何其他相关的环境因素。缺乏最佳的饲养条件不仅是禽类健康和福利问题，而且也是中国家禽生产力损失的一个非常大的成本来源。在次优条件下饲养鸡意味着相对于重量而言，这些鸡需要比在更优化环境下饲养更多的饲料。即使饲料的减少量很小，也会对生产率产生显着的积极影响。更好的条件还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，存在着一个重要的机会，可以与中国合作伙伴合作开发适当的解决方案，这将特别有助于提高中国家禽业的生产力。此外，这也将是解决中国家禽业目前声誉不佳的问题上迈出的一步。开发的解决方案将适用于世界其他国家，也可能用于其他畜牧业。因此，这对英国和中国来说都是绝佳的出口机会。目前，世界各地的家禽设施均采用一些有线传感器构建，提供家禽舍内的基本温度曲线。建议让自主机器人在设施周围移动，在移动时连续捕获数据，并对设施内不同高度（从最低的笼子到最高的笼子）的环境进行采样。由于机器人的导航知识，它将能够绘制数据，提供鸟类所接触的所有参数的 3 维视图，包括温度、湿度、风速、二氧化碳，并且还将有一个机载相机可以对条件和潜在的鸟类进行视觉评估。此外，基于当前原型“电子鼻”的传感器系统的开发将首次捕获有关疾病存在的数据。结合所有收集的数据将允许进行评估仅在禽类出现症状之前检测到疾病，但通过交叉引用所有环境数据将允许进行预测建模，并有可能首次使中国家禽养殖者能够预防禽类疾病，改善禽类福利、禽类生产性能并采取某种方式进行重建消费者对产品的信心。该项目商业案例的一个关键合作伙伴是英国的 Applied Poultry，该公司已经分析了全球家禽企业的数据，并将其转化为更好的知识和信息。项目完成后，目标是合作继续由 Applied Poultry 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板，用于对其设施进行实时分析，一些知识共享将使学术合作伙伴（英国和/或中国）能够继续参与并从此类项目中获取未来信息。由于该提案旨在监测鸟类在笼中，我们看不出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