Automatic broiler temperature measuring by thermal camera

Heat stress of broilers in commercial broiler-houses decreases their productivity and thusfarm profitability. Climate control systems use sensors measuring the temperature aroundthe broilers, which can be different from the actual body temperature of the broilers. In thisresearch, a method estimating the body temperature of an individual broiler was designedand validated for commercial broiler-houses. The method is based on a low-cost IR cameracalibrated in real time. The algorithm for the IR image processing uses lasso regressionprediction model. A prototype using this method was built and tested in a research broiler-house over 21 days (age 14e35 days) for 15 broilers. The predicted body temperature wascompared with the actual body temperature measured by temperature loggers implantedin the abdominal cavity. The accuracy was±0.27C measuring one broiler every 16 min onaverage. In an experiment in a commercial broiler house, a discrepancy between theclimate control activation and broiler estimated body temperature was shown. (PDF) Automatic broiler temperature measuring by thermal camera.