Design, Development and Performance Evaluation of a Portable Battery-Operated Litter Agitator Installed with AI-Controlled Obstacle-Avoidance Robot with Sensors

Abstract

In commercial broiler poultry units, the farmers are required to stir the litter at least twice or thrice per week during the stay of birds until they are disposed.The manual method of stirring is laborious, time consuming and drudgery prone activity. So, a portable battery-operated poultry litter agitator has been developed and an artificial intelligence-controlled obstacle avoidance robot with sensors was also installed to get the ammonia and air quality data from the poultry farms. Performance evaluation of the agitator was done at 550–650 rpm and 800–900 rpm. A comparative study between manual and mechanical method of litter stirring was done by recording different parameters such as body weight of broiler birds, moisture content and bulk density at 2 cm and 4 cm litter depth. Apart from the reduction in drudgery, the time required for agitating poultry farm of area 220 m² with 2000 bird capacity was found to be 58 min, while manual method of agitation by using bamboo stick was found to be 2–2.5 h. At 2 cm litter depth, there was no considerable difference in litter bulk density and moisture content with mechanical agitation at 550–650 rpm and 800–900 rpm. At 4 cm litter depth, mechanical agitation with 800–900 rpm of element was found effective to reduce bulk density and moisture content which helps to maintain litter quality during grow out period. In mechanical agitation at 4 cm litter depth 59 g per day growth in body weight of broilers were observed at 550–650 rpm and 62 g per day growth in body weight was seen at 800–900 rpm. The cost of operation of litter agitation was reduced by 60% along with the drudgery compared to manual method by bamboo stick.