On Implementing Wireless Smart Egg-Laying Hens Coop Control System

Abstract

Egg-laying hens are a type of chicken that are articularly vulnerable to the risk of stress impacting on reducing the amount of egg production. Proper feeding schedule and coop temperature are two important factors in reducing such a risk. A chicken farm usually has many coops and scattered over several places requiring a lot of labors for maintenance. Advances in science and technology, especially in computer and embedded systems offer various solutions to address such an issue by automating the coops of egg-laying hens, so that labors can be greatly reduced. This paper proposed a remote automation system that employs Arduino Mega 2560 board as the central control system, equipped with a Wi-Fi module ESP8266 for remote accessibility, an electromechanical relay for controlling heating bulbs on and off, servo motor as the actuator for food container’s lid. The system uses DHT11 sensor to read room temperature and HC-SR04 sensor to read distance that relates to the food availability in coops. The result of this research is the system capable of automating the coops that can be remotely controlled through the Blynk application on an Android device. Error measured from this system is ±2C in temperature readings and 0 cm in reading distance. The actuator of food container’s lid test shows a considerably linear result between open time and the amount of food being released.