Monitoring and Analysis of the Gaseous Emissions Collected in a Livestock Farm

Abstract

The study presents the preliminary results of air monitoring process in a dairy farm by a monitoring system designed in the context of a national research project. This study, in particular, aims at developing innovative technical solutions for smart dairy farming in order to increase the herd productivity. The monitoring process, in fact, allows to improve environment conditions and animal welfare of dairy cows and consequently enhance reproduction and production. To this regard, the smart system involved in the study has a fundamental role operating as a tool for a more efficient management of the herd and of the herd housing. In this field, the Smart Monitoring System (SMS) used here has been effectively implemented in order to increase the animal welfare but at the same time increase the animal production. This system, which presents different type of sensors, allows collecting different type of data, giving the opportunity to control and elaborate the barn environmental conditions aiming to increase the dairy sector sustainability. It allows the acquisition of big data time series about physical and environmental conditions of the facilities hosting the cow herds starting from the collection of both indoor and outdoor environmental features. This data collection process allows to carry out a diagnosis of the operating conditions, and early alerts in case of anomalies, as presented in this study. This approach and its results can be useful to understand the seasonality conditions in dairy farms with the goal of improving animal welfare.