Industrial Vision

Estimation of Turbulent Airflow in Livestock Buildings

The goal for this project is to estimate flow fields for the turbulent airflow that occur in livestock buildings for subsequent use in a further modelling and quantitative determination of relevant parameters. The end goal being to enable us to predict risk of draft as a function of the ventilation system. The project is a collaboration between the Informatics and Mathematical Modelling at The Technical University of Denmark, and the Statens Jordbrugstekniske Forsøg, Bygholm. This project is funded by Statens Jordbrugs- og Veterinærvidenskabelige Forskningsråd, and the two collaborators. All experiments are carried out at Statens Jordbrugstekniske Forsøg in the Airphysics Laboratory. A full-scale model as well as a 1:10 model of a segment of a livestock buildings is used. The airflow is visualized by inducing smoke in the air-inlets og the model and illuminating a plane using a laser sheet. The smoke in the illuminated plane is recoded using a light sensitive video camera. more

Contact: Rasmus Larsen

Intelligent Sensor for Autonomous Cleaning

Manual cleaning of livestock buildings, using high-pressure water technology, is one of the most tedious and health threatening tasks conducted by human labour. The cleaning process itself contributes to deterioration of the working environment due to stirring up dirt, micro organisms and water, which are inhaled by the operator. Consequently, improving the working conditions for personnel performing cleaning of today's livestock buildings is essential. Societies concerns about food safety and livestock welfare are also important issues on the modern farmer's agenda. Ongoing research in Europe includes development of autonomous cleaning robots, of which few are commercialised. Further investigations have shown that robot performance is poor regarding effectiveness and utilization of detergent and water. The water consumption for robotic cleaning is up to 40% higher than what is used for manual cleaning. Robotic cleaning often entails subsequent manual cleaning because the robot did not detect the cleanliness of the surfaces. The aim of the project is to improve the human working environment, secure the hygienic standard and optimised use of cleaning resources in livestock buildings. The specific objective is to develop an intelligent sensor system that can supply data to a system for autonomous cleaning of livestock compartments. more

Contact: Ian Braithwaite, Skjalm R. Arrĝe