Autonomous coop cooling system using renewable energy and water recycling

Abstract

Extreme temperature in a chicken coop can significantly affect the growth and productivity of poultry. Therefore, the temperature inside the chicken coop need to be controlled to protect it from extreme temperatures. Most of the technology use electrical energy supplied to an evaporative cooling system to control the temperature of a coop. This paper presents an autonomous chicken coop cooling system using renewable energy and water recycling (REMACT). In this study, a monitoring system with necessary hardware, control application, powered with solar power source and water recycling, has been developed. The proposed cooling system consists of hardware part such as an Internet of Things (IOT) controller platform, temperature sensor, solar panel, water pump, water storage, water drain and pipe. When the temperature sensor detects extreme temperature more than 28℃ in a chicken coop, the water in storage tank will flow throughout the pipe and pass into water pump before it irrigates the chicken coop roof. When the temperature is below 22℃, the bulb will light up to transfer heat to the chicken coop and cause the temperature drop back to a healthy range. The water drain that is attached to the roof will collect the water and return the water back to the water storage again. The software components required by the project are Arduino IDE, Thinger.io, and Android Studio Framework. Several experiments have been conducted with hot and cold scenarios. The system was able to stabilise the temperature back to a healthy range. A usability testing result demonstrates 80% satisfactory rate. The findings from the experiments show that IoT, renewable energy and water recycling have the potential for temperature control of a chicken coop.