Abstract
Free-range chicken farming allows egg-laying hens to move freely through their environment and perform their natural behavior, including laying her eggs. However, it takes time to gather these eggs manually, giving rise to high labor costs. This study proposes a smart mobile robot for poultry farms that can recognize eggs of two different colors on free-range farms. The robot can also pick up and sort eggs without damaging them. An egg feature extraction method with automatic thresholding is employed to detect both white and brown eggs, and a behavior-based navigation method is applied to allow the robot to reach the eggs while avoiding obstacles. The robot can move towards the position of each egg via visual tracking. Once the egg is within the collection area of the robot, it is gathered, sorted and stored in the tank inside the robot. Experiments are carried out in an outdoor field of size 5 m × 5 m under different climatic conditions, and the results showed that the average egg recognition rate is between 94.7% and 97.6%. The proposed mobile poultry robot is low in production cost and simple in operation. It can provide chicken farmers with automatic egg gathering on free-range farms.
Highlights
Animal welfare policies have been receiving increased amounts of attention all over the world [1].In poultry farming, traditional battery cages prevent the hens from performing the bulk of their natural behavior, which cause them to suffer from severe disuse osteoporosis [2,3]
Following the effective promotion and formulation of such policies, many chicken farmers have used grazing, flat feeding and enriched cage feeding methods to raise chickens, in order to allow chickens to carry out a sufficient range of activities
These methods can reduce environmental pressure, avoid reductions in egg production [8], and maintain the quality of eggs at a stable level. These chicken farmers use some semi-intensive or free-range poultry house systems to facilitate the management of chickens and comply with animal welfare policies [9]
Summary
Animal welfare policies have been receiving increased amounts of attention all over the world [1].In poultry farming, traditional battery cages prevent the hens from performing the bulk of their natural behavior, which cause them to suffer from severe disuse osteoporosis [2,3]. Following the effective promotion and formulation of such policies, many chicken farmers have used grazing, flat feeding and enriched cage feeding methods to raise chickens, in order to allow chickens to carry out a sufficient range of activities These methods can reduce environmental pressure, avoid reductions in egg production [8], and maintain the quality of eggs at a stable level. These chicken farmers use some semi-intensive or free-range poultry house systems to facilitate the management of chickens and comply with animal welfare policies [9]. The egg may be laid outside the Sensors 2020, 20, 6624; doi:10.3390/s20226624 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
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