Odour and hazardous gas monitoring system for swiftlet farming using wireless sensor network (WSN)

Abstract

The production of edible swiftlet nest is a growing industry in Malaysia; where farmers recreate the bird’s habitat in buildings referred to as swiftlet houses. The conditions in these swiftlet houses are however, largely unknown as there seems to be lack of research effort in this newly formed industry. This paper presents the odour and hazardous gas monitoring system utilising wireless sensor network. Several gas sensor readings including humidity, temperature, luminance and rainfall were recorded in a swiftlet house in Arau, Perlis. A single sensor element was found to be insufficient to monitor a specific gas as the odour is a synergy, inhibition and masking between different compounds. Indoor and outdoor humidity and temperature variations were also investigated. The studies have shown that the sensor responses were affected by the odour resulting from different combinations of four different groups of compounds. Minimum threshold level is proposed to alert the breeder so that efforts to reduce the gas levels to a safe and comfortable level can be taken.