The 2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things and Intelligence System (IoTaIS)

IoT Based Poultry Environment Monitoring System

Mohammed Hanif Lashari1 Ali Asghar Memon2* Syed Asif Ali Shah 3
Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
Mehran University of Engg, and Techonogy Mehran University of Engg, and Technology Mehran University of Engg. and Tech.
Jamshoro, Pakistan Jamshoro, Pakistan Jamshoro, Pakistan
17meel58@students.muet.edu.pk ali.asghar@faculty.muet.edu.pk asif.shah@faculty.muet.edu.pk

Karishma Nenwani4 Ferwa Shafqat5

Department of Telecommunication Department of Electrical Engineering
Engineering, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology
Mehran University of Engg. and Technology Jamshoro, Pakistan
Jamshooro, Pakistan ferwashafqat@gmail.com
karishmanenwani78@gmail.com

Abstract— The environmental problems and associated issues have traditional environment monitoring and protection
had been a source of worry for the world. Emerge of IoT systems like, mud or baked bricks made farmhouse with
(Internet of things) and the step towards the smart approach window openings and /or a yard. The standard set up of
such as smart cities, smart buildings, and smart grid have poultry farm along with basic facilities including monitoring
really posed the successful implementation of IoT. The success and protection of the parameters discussed above are
is only possible in the real sense when the problematic issues
directly related to the outcome of these farms. If these
can be addressed. This paper proposes an Internet of Things
Technology based protection and monitoring of environment of parameters are taken care of correctly, the health of poultry
a poultry house. The proposed software based hardware is will be good enough and profit will increase. This can only
capable of monitoring the environment related parameters be achieved if poultry environment is cautiously monitored
such as air temperature, air humidity, O2, CO2 level of and controlled. The smart poultry farm discussed in [1]
concentration and NH3 concentration. The wireless sensor is addressed the temperature, humidity, smoke and weather
responsible for the effective data collection of the described condition. The advancement that has been made in the
parameters and also these are source coordination and control. technologies now make it possible for remote monitoring
The hardware is implemented successfully at different sites and controlling system and thus reduces the manpower cost
within the poultry shed. The experimental setup was found
and enhances the production [2]. IoT can be defined as
very effective and accurate. This scheme will earn a safe
environment and profit to the poultry industry. many physical objects (having capability of sensing
something from the environment) connected to a WAN
Keywords— Internet of things, Wireless Sensor Node, (Wide Area Network) network to collect, share and convey
Environmental parameters. information for some analysis. With the help of these small
network connected sensors or objects, we can easily control
I. INTRODUCTION a certain system. There is a great extent of using IoT like a
In most of the countries, the demand for poultry meat is smart hospital, smart home, and smart traffic. Smart poultry
increasing progressively because of high protein, low farm system can be a good implementation of IoT system.
energy, and low cholesterol meat. The high production of IoT can help the poultry farm owners to enhance production
chicken depends on the environment, breeding process and while lowers the cost substantially. The size of poultry farm
the active operations. To monitor and control the farm is generally 60 x 120 meters. WSN based model is discussed
actively, in most cases sufficient manpower is required, in [3]. Wireless sensors are applied in food and agriculture
however, in turn, it increases the production cost applications [4]. Internet of Things (IoT) is an environment
significantly. So, it requires a mechanism that may manage of a complete and comprehensive variety of things/objects
the poultry farm easily for better improvement in the interconnected and capable of interaction with others under
production with lower cost. Usually, the poultry farms are the umbrella of new applications. Main theme/flow chart of
located in suburbs, away from populated areas. In Pakistan, the Internet of Things as shown in Fig.1. Different type of
the increasing demand for the chicken in hotels, marriage controller and monitoring devices are used to maintain the
parties and the daily meal has earned increasing profit to the temperature, humidity, feeding, and watering inside poultry
poultry industry at large. At the same time, the increasing farm that may be controlled remotely. In some developing
global warming, particularly in Sindh and Punjab provinces countries, there are certain issues, such as lack of water,
of Pakistan where the temperature in daytime rises to 51 C0 hard weather conditions, lack of infrastructure and transport
has been alarming to the health of people, animals, and facilities. For such countries, an IoT based smart poultry
birds. The preventive measures from the scorching sunlight farming may help to resolve these issues up to some extent.
may include plenty use of water, unnecessary travel i.e. As discussed earlier, there can be environmental monitoring
indeed the care. The climate due to poultry farms is and controlling system which can be controlled remotely.
hazardous to life. The reasons may include, the respiratory, These monitoring and controlling system are often based on
digestive and behavioral disorders within the farms which the wireless network. Wireless communication is steadily

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The 2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things and Intelligence System (IoTaIS)

growing in recent years and it can be easily implemented in

places that are located in remote areas with hard weather
conditions and without complete communication
infrastructure. For these reasons, the wireless network has
an advantage over a wired network and seen as the best
candidate to avoid the cable layouts and its management. In
a wireless communication, the Wireless sensor network
(WSN) is most suitable for such type of environments [3].
It provides connectivity to different sensors while inter-
connected with internet using a wide area network (WAN).
The WSN is consisting of small sensor nodes, coordinator,
and internet gateway (WAN access) [5]. A remarkable work
is presented in the literature on use of IoT and related
technology and techniques [6-12] with their suitable
achievements. But a few parameters are missing in the given
approaches A sensor node has low processing and power
capabilities than a coordinator. A coordinator is a powerful
device which has more processing capabilities and a good
battery life. An internet gateway can be a cellular network
or any other internet access point. Poultry Industry is the
2nd largest Industry in Pakistan. Pakistan is considered as an
agricultural wealthy Country in terms of food and important Fig. 1 IoT flowchart.
spot in Pakistan as the eggs and Chicken meat is critical and
rich wellsprings of protein, vitamins, and minerals. Poultry II. THE OVERALL SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
gives rich natural excrement and is an essential wellspring Remote and scattered sheds are not easy to monitor, manage
of pay and job to a huge number of farmers and different and mobilize, even controlled sheds are being controlled in
persons occupied with united exercises in the poultry silos, the staff and management is needed proper attention
business. The health of chicken depends on the poultry farm on a single shed in this industry, which is fully dependent on
and associated facilities. The environmental conditions are the local staff's performance, it increases staffs and needs
directly proportional to chicken health including the growth more technical expertise to manage it properly. As the
rate. The design of a poultry farm mainly based on suitable number of farms increases, the issues will be doubled. IoT
environmental conditions. The suitability of such conditions Based environment monitoring system requires
can only be achieved with proper ventilation, cooling, and development and integration of many hardware and
lightning. software components. Environment of the single controlled
This paper proposes the new model by using advanced sheds or 100s of poultry farms will be easily viewed on a
modern technology to make traditional chicken farming single dashboard, all attributes of the shed with respect to
smarter. The smart farm gives the environmental parameter their each zone, will be separately viewed and monitored,
statistics like temperature, humidity, Ammonia gas, weather any corporate poultry sector can view 100s and 1000s of
condition etc. to the desktop computer through advanced sheds, this will provide company as a one window
sensors and microcontroller. The farm is connecting with operation, company can centrally monitor or manage all
smarter devices like an application program, sensors, and a company level operations. Role-based access will be
microcontroller which gives Automation to the chicken provided to a company with respect to roles and
poultry farming. responsibilities of particular regional or operational area,
within a country or even across the world. The company or
farmer can view and access dashboard/URL link anytime
and anywhere in the world. Fig.2 shows the overall system
architecture of IoT Based environmental monitoring system.

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The 2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things and Intelligence System (IoTaIS)

IV. SENSOR NODE DESIGN

In this work, we choose raspberry pi board, the raspberry pi
is the hub of Internet of Things and also called
minicomputer. It is a low cost about 35$, having low power
consumption, pocket size computer. The raspberry pi has
flexibility to support different operating systems like
Windows, Linux, Raspbian etc. with different programing
languages. Raspbian is official operating system
for all models of the Raspberry Pi.
We are using Raspbian with its C++ flavor. In our project
raspberry pi B+ model is used as shown in Fig. 4, as this
model has better specifications as compared to other
raspberry pi models and latest version. Raspberry Pi can be
connected to a local area network through Ethernet cable or
USB Wi-Fi adapter, and then it can be accessed easily from
anywhere in the world through SSH remote login or by
Fig. 2 System Architecture putty software by just putting raspberry pi IP address in it.
We used Sim900 GSM module with pi for Internet
The system is aimed to have different Nodes at Multiple connectivity and notification (SMS). Sensors are connected,
locations and a central monitoring station or mobile and Raspberry pi collects that data send it to Webserver
application to monitor the entire locations. Each of these continuously. It also stores data for some time, take average
Nodes comprises of Raspberry Pi and consists of different of it and send summary to owner, supervisor or concern
sensors. Each Node sends data to the Web server and all the person through SMS. Summary updates concern person
devices placed in remote areas at different locations can be every time depends upon need, summary comprises of last
monitored at the central monitoring station. Operations hour or half an hour data. Huge amount of data is collected,
become very easy due to one window operation. we can use that data for analysis or future prediction about
Alerts via SMS, notifications, emails for any abnormal environmental behavior in Poultry Farm House.
conditions/environmental change of the sheds to owner,
supervisors or any managing staffs. This will help
operational staff to take immediate actions against any
abnormal condition, these real-time alerts will provide 24/7
care of controlled shed environment.
III. FLOWCHART OF THE PROPOSED SYSTEM
IoT Based Poultry Environment Monitoring Application
Flow Chart consists of 3 parts Sensor Network, IoT Service
Middleware Platform and IoT Application Services as
shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 4 Raspberry Pi 3 model B board

Each device consists of different sensors as shown in Fig. 5

and send data continuously to the Web server using 2G/3G
and have predefined limits for temperature, Humidity,
Carbon-dioxide (CO2), Oxygen (O2) and Ammonia (NH3).
Alerts or notifications generated and send to Supervisor,
Doctor, and Owner of the Farm House to take desired
actions.

Fig. 3 Application flow chart

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The 2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things and Intelligence System (IoTaIS)

• Real-time triggers in SMS, emails, Notifications to take

immediate actions
• Real-time monitoring of required Temperature, Humidity and
airflow per bird
• Gas Detector Sensor detects gases and their levels, like CO2,
NH3, O2
• Intelligent data collection and analysis to improve the
effectiveness
• Displays Overall Equipment Effectiveness
• Energy consumptions monitoring & performance
• Reporting mechanism to view & compare strategies and
planning, with previous production cycles

V. EXPERIMENTAL RIG AND RESULTS

This system was practically installed Poultry Farm House
in Sindh, Pakistan and observed real-time data as shown in
Fig. 6.

Fig. 5 Block diagram of sensor node

Fig. 6 Installation of sensor node at poultry

The result of all parameters is shown in Fig.7 one by one.
Starting from temperature, relative humidity, Ammonia
TABLE I COMPARISON BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL AND (NH3), carbon dioxide and Oxygen level separately.
MODERN POULTRY FARMS
Conventional poultry farms
Multiple farms increase Operational Costs
• Remote & Scattered Poultry forms are not easy to mobilize,
manage & Monitor
• Control sheds need manual Configurations, which require
skilled workers
• Less technical staff can cost more
• No Control without monitoring
• Birds are in higher risks, due to Invisible environmental factors
like
• (Air Quality – CO2, NH3, O2)
• It will maximize chances of efficiency compromises
• Unsatisfied performance even millions are invested
• Less care and inefficiency leads
• Higher chances of different diseases
• Poultry Mortalities
• Higher Medication costs
• Slow growth rate
• Poor FCR
o Antibiotic Residue
o Low production
o Direct impact on business profit

Modern poultry farms

• 99% visibility of all Poultry farms across the country or
Continents.
• Single Dashboard for Monitoring and Management of 100s &
1000s of Poultry farms.
• Business status at a glance such as profit, loss, production, and
health.
• Monitoring from any time, anywhere.
• No need for trained Staff

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The 2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things and Intelligence System (IoTaIS)

[8] Vermesan, Ovidiu, and Peter Friess, eds. Internet of things:

converging technologies for smart environments and integrated
ecosystems. River Publishers, 2013.
[9] Yang, Chao-Tung, Shuo-Tsung Chen, Walter Den, Yun-Ting Wang,
and Endah Kristiani. "Implementation of an intelligent indoor
environmental monitoring and management system in the
cloud." Future Generation Computer Systems (2018).
[10] Mansor, Hasmah, Ammar Nor Azlin, Teddy Surya Gunawan,
Mahanijah Md Kamal, and Ahmad Zawawi Hashim. "Development
of Smart Chicken Poultry Farm." Indonesian Journal of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science 10, no. 2 (2018): 498-505.
[11] Saifuddin, S., and N. Kholis. "Monitoring System and Temperature
Controlling on PID Based Poultry Hatching Incubator." In IOP
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1, p. 012007. IOP Publishing, 2018.
[12] Ndraha, Nodali, Hsin-I. Hsiao, Jelena Vlajic, Ming-Feng Yang, and
Hong-Ting Victor Lin. "Time-temperature abuse in the food cold
chain: Review of issues, challenges, and recommendations." Food
Control 89 (2018): 12-21.

Time [hrs.]
Fig. 7 Experimental waveforms of the parameters obtained from proposed
scheme.

VI. CONCLUSION
Monitoring of environmental parameters in a modern
poultry farm is addressed, and successfully implemented
with the help of IoT. In this paper, various environmental
parameters affecting growth of chickens have been
identified and defined. The advanced IoT technological
equipment is installed in the sheds, capable to sense the
variations in the addressed parameters, and found capable to
extract, hold and send all data at the same time. The
appropriate implementation of the proposed scheme will
earn a sufficient profit to the poultry industry and health of
the people will also be safe due to healthy chicken meat..
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are thankful to Mehran University of
Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan for
providing research environment.

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