Juli Ordeix, Jordi Serra and David Reifs have created the system for monitoring water level in the tanks, the level of food in the dispensers and the opening and closing of the doors, as well as controlling the temperature and humidity of the poultry company Niu Verd. For this reason, this organic chicken farm located in Sant Feliu Sasserra (Bages) and the Association of Rural Initiatives of Catalonia (ARCA) contacted the research group MECAMAT (Mechatronics and Modeling Applied to Materials Technology) of the UVic-UCC. “The aim was to create the pilot project of a system for monitoring environmental parameters and automating certain processes on the farm in order to better manage them,” explains Juli Ordeix Rigo, a researcher who leads this project.

The system implemented as a pilot test allow continuous and remote control of one of the chicken coops in the farm, by sending data to a local server or to the cloud via the wi-fi network. As this is a pilot project, the overall approach of the system may vary during the final implementation, “, especially in terms of the type and characteristics of the control unit, the architecture of sending and receiving data ( wi-fi, BT, GPRS, RF, etc.) and the data storage and visualization architecture ”, underlines Josep Caballé Benavent, a student participating in the pilot project as part of his studies.

Thus, the developed system will have a general control unit for the monitoring of sensors and mechanical components, and for the storage and local transmission of data. It will have sensors for monitoring the water level and for monitoring the level of the food in the dispensers on the farm. It will also include a mechanized and automated system for the scheduled opening and closing of the door for animals, and a system for storing and viewing remotely sent data.