WO2020127467A1

WO2020127467A1 - Method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals

Info

Publication number: WO2020127467A1
Application number: PCT/EP2019/085926
Authority: WO
Inventors: Dries BERCKMANS
Original assignee: Soundtalks Nv
Priority date: 2018-12-18
Filing date: 2019-12-18
Publication date: 2020-06-25
Also published as: BE1026887A1; BE1026887B1

Abstract

The invention concerns a method for monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals, each comprising multiple buildings having one or more airspaces that comprise one or more monitoring devices equipped with one or more sensors to receive data. Data obtained by the monitoring devices is uploaded to the web server. User can access web server data related to one or more commercial sites for livestock animals using mobile terminal wherein this comprises display to indicate the broader level summary associate with one or more commercial sites and detailed status of one or more commercial sites wherein detailed status comprises outside environmental conditions, temperature, relative humidity, status of each airspace of the building and livestock animal's health and/or welfare status. Further, it provides personalized notifications to users associated with one or more sites indicating site status and early warning of alarm conditions.

Description

METHOD FOR INTELLIGENT MONITORI NG OF ONE OR MORE COMMERCIAL

SITES FOR LIVESTOCK ANI MALS

Field of I nvention

The present invention is related to a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals. More specifically, the present invention relates to provide the health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals and status information of one or more com mercial sites using one or more sensors and one or more microphones.

Background

With rapid econom ic and social development, flesh eaters have increased around the globe which has led to an increase in demand for pork. Thus better management of a livestock animal farm is necessary to meet the increased demand in the market.

Diseases in livestock animals are very com mon like in humans but identifying the diseases in livestock animals is very difficult. One of the methods is to perform inspection on daily basis which is very complex and inefficient process as there are large number of livestock animal farms each farm comprises a large number of livestock animals, for example pigs. I nspecting such large farms requires manpower, where the farm owner or a veterinarian has to visit the farms to find the health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals in the barn. Such practices require time and labour. I n some cases it often leads to improper or late identification of disease which leads to productivity losses. Also, in farms where the number of livestock animals is large, manual inspection is labor intensive and inefficiencies in time management may occur.

An improved technique is implemented using monitoring devices comprising one or more sensors to provide indication of the health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals by analyzing the sounds produced by the livestock animals and their surrounding environment. However, these devices still require farmer visit to know the exact status of the livestock animals.

There is a need in the art to implement remote management of commercial sites for livestock animals.

US7297110B2 discloses a method for monitoring the environment and characteristics for e.g. sound, position etc. of a subject (e.g. , human child or a non-human animal) over an electronic com m unication using web server and mobile application. The user receives fear and distress data on the device from monitoring device connected to the monitored subject.

The existing systems of monitoring livestock animal farms have several disadvantages:

A disadvantage is that they do not provide monitoring of more than one livestock animal farm .

Another disadvantage is that they do not provide personalized and intelligent early warning alarm indication based on environmental and health/welfare data in the livestock animal farms.

Another disadvantage is that they do not provide visual representation of livestock animal farms in the form of map to indicate alarming and un-alarm ing conditions. None of the prior art in the technology provides the personalized and intelligent early warning alarm indication. Further none of the prior art in the technology domain talks about detailed status of one or more commercial sites and personalized health and/or welfare status of livestock animals thus there is a need in the art to better analyze, monitor and control the livestock animal farms to achieve high accuracy and productivity.

The proposed method would like to minimize the error scope by using a web/mobile application to monitor livestock animal's environment information, to detect livestock animal’s status and diseases in advance, and to provide the alarm ing conditions to the administrator or user to cope beforehand. Accordingly, a user obtains the required information for optimizing time management.

Object of the I nvention

Accordingly, it is a prime objective of the present invention to overcome the above mentioned disadvantages of the prior art by providing an intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals using one or more sensors and one or more m icrophones.

Another objective of the present invention is to provide monitoring of multiple commercial sites at remote locations associated with one or more users.

Another objective of the present invention is to provide personalized notification and early warning indication related to the status of commercial sites to the concerned user.

Another objective of the present invention is to provide a precise and accurate monitoring of the one or more com mercial sites for identifying the abnormalities in livestock animals. Another objective of the present invention is to provide a visual representation of one or more commercial sites on map to represent alarm ing condition if any of the sites.

Another objective of the invention is to provide a mobile application to provide fast overview of status of different buildings on the move.

Another objective of the invention is to provide an interactive chatroom facility to allow the users to share photos, videos, notes and comments with other users

Brief Description of Draw ings

The above and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from a consideration of the following detailed description presented in connection with the accompanying drawings in which :

Figure 1 illustrates an interaction mechanism for monitoring of the commercial sites for livestock animals.

Figure 2 illustrates a pictorial representation of exemplary device 200 for monitoring the commercial sites for livestock animals

Figure 3 illustrates an example of user interface 300 displaying overview of different sites associated with the user

Figure 4 illustrates an example of user interface 400 displaying a site details sites associated with the user.

Figure 5a and Figure 5b shows an example of user interface for monitoring of commercial sites for livestock animals on mobile.

Figure 6 illustrates a schematic representation of a system for monitoring a status of a livestock facility

Detailed description

While this solution may be subject to various modifications and take alternative forms, it has been illustrated as an example in the accompanying drawings and will be described in detail below. However, it should be understood that this solution is not intended to be limited to the specific forms disclosed.

Some aspects comparable in terms of scope, the disclosed embodiments are described below. It should be understood that these aspects are presented merely to provide the reader with a brief sum mary of certain forms that the solution could take and that these aspects are not intended to lim it its scope. I ndeed, this solution can encompass a variety of aspects that may not be defined below. As used herein, the terms user, individual user, and individual m ay be used interchangeably with each other. The present invention is also applicable to“one or more individual users” as described in the claim , includes plurality of users, individual users, individuals.

A Web application (Web app) is an application program that is stored on a remote server and delivered over the I nternet through a browser interface.

A mobile application most com monly referred to as an app, is a type of application software designed to run on a mobile device, such as a sm artphone or tablet com puter.

Mobile term inal is a remote computing device which may be selected from but not lim ited to laptop, desktop, PC, etc.

As used herein, the terms“application", “app” and“user interface” m ay be used interchangeably with each other.

The term “livestock anim al" may include “cattle”, “pigs”, “horses”, “goats”, “poultry”, “pets” and any animal which can be raised in livestock facilities. I n a preferred embodim ent, pigs are selected as livestock anim als.

The term “livestock facility” may be used interchangeably with “installations” or “barn" or“facility”.

The term “health", as used in the present text, refers to the absence of disease, pain and distress. The term“health status” refers to a status of health .

The term“welfare", as used in the present text, refers to how a livestock animal is coping with the conditions in which it lives. A livestock anim al is in a good state of welfare if, preferably as indicated by scientific evidence, it is healthy, comfortable, well nourished, safe, able to express innate behaviour, and if it is not suffering from unpleasant states such as pain, fear, and distress. The term“welfare status” refers to a status of welfare. The term “health and/or welfare status" refers to a status of health and/or welfare.

The term“therm al discomfort", as used in the present text, refers to tem perature shock, heat stress and/or cold stress. For exam ple, pigs cannot cope with a temperature shock corresponding to a temperature decrease of 4 °C in one hour. Temperature shocks may also be caused by a sudden tem perature increase.

The term“heat stress”, as used in the present text, refers to a situation where too m uch heat is absorbed by a person , a plant or an animal, preferably a livestock animal, and causes stress, illness or even death . Heat stress occurs when a body cannot cool itself enough to maintain a healthy tem perature. Heat stress is manifested by elevated body tem perature, hot, dry skin , lack of sweating and/or neurological sym ptoms such as paralysis, headache vertigo and/or unconsciousness. It can also cause heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, which may lead to death.

The term “neural networks”, as used in the present text, refers to a network typically comprising an input layer, possibly a number of hidden layers and an output layer each containing different units. The input can be either a set of features or raw audio signals from multiple m icrophones. A neural network is able to detect patterns in the input data, can extract or identify new useful features, can learn to perform classification tasks, spatial localization of sound events, dereverberation and denoising.

The present invention relates to a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals, wherein each of the sites comprises one or more buildings, each of the buildings comprising one or more airspaces, and each of the airspaces comprising one or more monitoring devices equipped with one or more sensors, the method comprising the steps of:

a. obtaining data captured by the one or more sensors of monitoring devices and uploading said data to a web server;

b. accessing web server data related to one or more commercial sites for livestock animals on a mobile term inal of user to report the status of commercial sites and health and/or welfare status of the livestock animal wherein the reporting comprises:

i. indicating the detailed status of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals based on user selection wherein the detailed status comprises outside environmental conditions, temperature, relative humidity, status of each airspace of the building and health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals;

c. providing personalized notifications to the user associated with one or more sites indicating site status and early warning of alarm conditions.

With the term “intelligent monitoring”, it is meant that the monitoring is not only able to monitor output from sensors, but also is able to provide an intelligent step in between obtaining data and indication of status and provision of personalized notifications, i.e. an interpretation of the data can be indicated or provided. For example, instead of or in addition to reporting temperature or relative hum idity, heat stress can also be reported. As another example, instead of or in addition to reporting sounds or audio signals, evolution of detected events in time can also be reported. For step b. above, the term “accessing web server data related to one or more commercial sites” is to be understood as accessing web server data related to the one or more commercial sites. Also,“to report the status of commercial sites” is to be understood as to report the status of the commercial sites. I n other words, when “commercial sites” is mentioned in the above embodiment of the invention, reference is always made to the same commercial sites.

The term “data captured by the one or more sensors of monitoring devices” is to be understood as data captured by at least m ultiple sensors of a different type of one or more monitoring devices. “Sensors of a different type" is to be interpreted as sensors which are configured to perform a different functionality, which sensors may be selected from the list comprising temperature sensors, relative humidity sensors, color and light intensity sensors, and gas sensors. According to a preferred embodiment disclosed below, the one or more monitoring devices comprise one or more microphones, which one or more microphones can also be called “acoustic sensors" and can also be interpreted as a possible type of said “sensors of a different type”.

I n case of data captured by the one or more sensors, the term “web server data” can be understood as non-processed or raw data captured by the one or more sensors of monitoring devices which are uploaded to a web server. I n case of data captured by one or more microphones, as explained further on in the text, the term “web server data” can be understood as processed data obtained by processing data captured by one or more m icrophones, which processed data is uploaded to a web server.

With the term “detailed status of one or more commercial sites” is meant the status of the one or more commercial sites.

With the term “user selection” is meant that the user can specify in which detail the user wants to see the status. For example, the user can select a broad overview, or can select more details on temperature or on coughing of livestock animals.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the one or more monitoring devices comprise one or more m icrophones and wherein data captured by the one or more m icrophones are obtained and uploaded to a web server.

I n a preferred embodim ent, the invention provides a m ethod for intelligent monitoring of one or more com m ercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the reporting further comprises displaying a map of the region com prising one or more com m ercial sites for livestock anim als associated with the user to indicate a broader level sum mary associated with one or more com m ercial sites wherein the broader level sum mary comprises site nam e, location , count of messages, alert and notification related to each site and visual indication to represent any alarm ing condition related to any site.

Weather data or forecast can be used for advanced controlling of com m ercial sites for livestock animals, in particular for the air conditioning of said com m ercial sites, e.g. by a captured change in tem perature, change in ventilation and/or change of feeding.

According to embodim ents, the uploading of data captured by the one or more sensors and one or more m icrophones of monitoring devices to a web server , can be subdivided in the uploading of non-processed or raw data captured by the one or more sensors, e.g. by one or more tem perature sensors, relative hum idity sensors, color and light intensity sensors, and/or gas sensors, to a web server on the one hand, and in the uploading of processed data obtained by processing data captured by the one or more m icrophones, on the other hand.

According to a preferred em bodim ent, said detailed status additionally com prises information on heat stress and/or temperature shock of the livestock animals, which inform ation is at least partly indicative for the health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals.

According to a preferred embodim ent, said reporting and/or the providing of said personalized notifications to the user are effected within 2 hours, are more preferably effected within 1 .5 hours, are even more preferably effected within 1 hour, are even more preferably effected within 30 m inutes, are yet even more preferably effected within 20 m inutes and are most preferably effected within a time of at most 1 5 m inutes, from said uploading of captured data. I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the mobile terminal of user is a remote computing device which is selected from to the list comprising laptop, desktop, PC, smart phone and tablet.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the data captured by the one or more sensors comprises data captured by one or more sensors selected from the group comprising temperature sensors, relative humidity sensors, color and light intensity sensors and gas sensors. Said gas sensors are suitable to measure gasses or emissions. Said gas sensors are preferably selected from the group comprising sensors suitable to measure concentrations of ammonia, C02, butyric acid, dust and/or odor.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the data captured by one or more microphones includes sound generated by livestock animals and/or environmental sound data associated with one or more airspaces.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the data captured by monitoring devices is filtered and analyzed in reference to past recorded data to indicate the current status of each airspace of the building and health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals, thermal discomfort with air temperature and relative humidity status in the one or more airspaces, or combined in a temperature humidity index, or a temperature shock, is represented via visual indicators to indicate warning and alarm condition if any.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the status of each airspace of the building indicates the active and offline status of the total number of devices associated with the airspace. According to another preferred embodiment the status of each airspace of the building indicates other or additional information relating to each airspace of the building. Preferably, said other or additional information relates to one or more of the following: information on the location of devices associated with the airspace and information on the maintenance history of the devices associated with the airspace.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the detailed status includes information specific to single site selected by the user and broader level sum mary of the other associated sites.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the user can download the daily or weekly or monthly reports from the web server in multiple formats of spreadsheet and/or word processing applications such as Excel, CSV, and a word document, and/or pdf.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the personalized notifications are selected from the list comprising notification via SMS, e-mail, push notification via app, or any combination thereof.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the user can interact using chatroom facility or message board to share notes and com ments with different users. Accordingly, a communication channel is provided for all stakeholders related to a specific commercial site. Non limiting example of suitable message boards are web-based message boards and mobile app message boards.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein said web server is in communication with said mobile term inal via the internet. According to embodiments, said communication is established using a digital wireless data communication technology using sub-gigahertz radio frequency bands like 169 MHz, 433 MHz, 868 MHz and 915 MHz. Said digital wireless data communication technology enables very-long-range transmissions (more than 10 km in rural areas) with low power consumption. Said technology permits inexpensive, long-range connectivity for I nternet of Things (loT) devices in rural, remote and offshore industries, and is typically used in mining, natural resource management, renewable energy, transcontinental logistics, and supply chain management. I n a preferred embodiment, the digital wireless data communication technology using sub-gigahertz radio frequency bands like 169 MHz, 433 MHz, 868 MHz and 915 MHz is LoRa. LoRa is presented in two parts, i) LoRa (Long Range) , the physical layer and ii) LoRa WAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) , the upper layers.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the web server data is accessed by the authentic user only. The term “authentic user” can be understood as a user which is authorized to access the web server data.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the early warning of alarm conditions is determined in reference to past recorded data.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the method further comprises a mobile application for fast overview of different sites and buildings on the move. The term “mobile application” can be understood as a mobile device running a computer program .

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the method further comprises alarm ing for functioning or malfunctioning of one of the installations in the airspace selected from the list comprising a heating system , ventilation system , feeding lines, drinking systems, sprinklers, cleaning systems and artificial lights.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the livestock animals are selected from the group consisting of cattle, pigs, horses, goats, poultry, pets and any animal which can be raised in livestock facilities.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the livestock animals are one or more pigs.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the livestock animals are one or more chickens.

I n a preferred embodiment, the invention provides a method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals according to the invention, wherein the livestock animals are one or more turkeys.

The method for intelligent monitoring according to the present invention may be advantageously combined with the teachings of PCT/EP2019/085896 and PCT/EP2019/085897, filed on 18 December 2019 on behalf of SoundTalks NV, which are incorporated herein by reference.

A method according to the present invention is able to provide alerts on both machines and animal behavior to a user, which alerts can preferably be accessed on a mobile device running a computer program .

The disclosure is further described by the following non-limiting figures which further illustrate the disclosure, and which are not intended to, nor should they be interpreted to, limit the scope of the disclosure.

Figures

Description of Figure 1

Figure 1 illustrates an interaction mechanism for monitoring of commercial sites for livestock animals. According to a preferred embodiment, the livestock animals are pigs. Each of the sites comprises one or more buildings. Each of the one or more buildings comprise one or more airspaces, airspace being a physical space without walls. Each of the airspaces comprises one or more monitoring devices for providing information related to the temperature, relative humidity and livestock animal health and/or welfare status in that airspace. Big airspaces preferably comprise multiple monitoring devices in order to to be able to capture the required information in the whole airspace.

As shown in the diagram , 100 include one or more monitoring devices 101, web server 102, and one or more mobile terminal devices 103. The monitoring devices 101 capture the environmental data and sounds generated by the livestock animals using the sensors and microphones respectively. The captured data is either processed by the device’s processing module or uploaded directly to the web server 102. The web server processes the unprocessed data using one or more processing modules. The web server stores the uploaded and processed data which can further be accessed by users from their mobile terminals 103. The data captured by monitoring devices is filtered and analyzed in reference to past recorded data to indicate the current status of each airspace of the building and health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals.

The web server hosts a web application for monitoring the commercial sites for livestock animals and can be accessed by the users over the I nternet through a web-browser interface. The user triggers a request to the web server over the internet through a web browser of the user’s mobile term inal 103. The web server in turn responds back to client (in this case the web browser on the user’s mobile term inal) with the requested information that then appears on the display of the user’s mobile terminal.

The web server collects data from the monitoring devices situated on a site to provide information related to the temperature, relative hum idity and health and/or welfare of livestock animals. The health and/or welfare of livestock animals is determined by analyzing the various sound produced by them to calculate but not limited to the number and intensity of coughing sounds. The web application provides detailed information of each and every building associated with a site and further provides detailed information related to the airspaces of a building.

Only authenticated users are allowed to access the web application. Users need to register themselves on the application by providing their personal details such as name, age, address, etc. , contact details like email address and phone number, and the details regarding the sites associated with them . After the user has provided all the information, the user will be asked to create credentials for the purpose of logging into the application in future.

The users may further access the monitoring devices via a mobile app on their smartphones. The mobile application provides a fast overview of the status of different sites and buildings on the move. The web applications comprise all the functionalities of the mobile application along with the additional functionalities of managing sites and contacts and more detailed data related to each monitoring device.

Description of Figure 2

FIG.2 illustrates a pictorial representation of exemplary device 200 for monitoring commercial sites for livestock animals. According to a preferred embodiment, the livestock animals are pigs. The device may be positioned at any appropriate position in the sites so as to accurately monitor health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals and surrounding environment. The device can be installed easily by means of powering it through a power cable. The sites comprise heating and cooling (ventilation) systems to regulate the temperature and keep the livestock animals in their most thermo-comfortable zone (age related) so they can use all their energy for growth and thus meet production. The sites also comprise feeding line systems for feeding the livestock animals, lights to potentially impose an artificial pattern of day or night to improve the growth of certain livestock animal species.

As shown in the FIG. 2, the device 200 is made up of a housing 201 comprising two or more microphones 202-1..202-6, herein collectively referred as the microphones 202 and individually referred as m icrophone 202, temperature sensor 203, relative humidity sensor 204, LEDs 205, light sensor 206, loudspeaker 207. The housing 201 is mainly dome-shaped and can be manufactured from polypropylene, polyethylene and/or polyvinylchloride. The housing 201 is connected to an electrical wire for providing electrical energy via connections to said microphones 202, temperature sensor 203, relative humidity sensor 204, LEDs 205, light sensor 206 and loudspeaker 207.

The device comprises two or more microphones 202 for recording the sounds produced in the commercial site for livestock animals. Preferably the device includes six microphones arranged in a circular periphery on the bottom part of the housing. All the microphones are placed in a plane and are pointing downwards. The m icrophones are configured to capture the sounds generated by the livestock animals which are later analyzed to determine the health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals. The m icrophones also capture the sounds generated by the various systems including heating systems, ventilation systems, feeding lines, cleaning systems, etc. Microphones 202 provide an indication on health, welfare, management status of sites. The sounds of diseases like coughing, sneezing, snicking, etc., have a sound associated with them and may easily be captured in microphone 202. Issues such as aggression, tail biting, etc can also be associated with certain sounds. Malfunctioning of feeding lines or ventilations or heating system is audible and thus detectable through microphone 202. Multiple microphones 202 allows for potential extra functionalities such as sound source localization, noise reduction, dereverberation and determining directionality of sound and more advanced signal processing techniques such as neural networks.

The temperature sensor 203 is located outside of the housing so it can measure the environmental temperature in the commercial site for livestock animals. The comfort and growth of livestock animals is very much linked to the temperature they are feeling. If the temperature is too low, the livestock animals will feel cold and they will use energy to generate heat. This means that this energy will not be available anymore for growing. Just like human beings, livestock animals can adapt themselves to changing temperature if the change is gradual. Sudden drops can lead to high intolerance and disease outbreak due to lower biological resistance of the livestock animals. Every age group also has their own comfort temperature. It is therefore important to follow the temperature in a livestock animal site for both health/welfare as well as management issues. A sudden drop in temperature due to cold wind from the north blowing on the building can be an alarm for potential disease outbreak, whereas the same drop due to malfunctioning heating or ventilation is clearly a management issue.

The relative hum idity sensor 204 positioned opposite from the temperature sensor on the outside of the housing, measures the relative humidity inside the commercial site for livestock animals. Temperature in combination with the relative hum idity determines the feeling temperature. For example, in humans, 30 °C will feel different with 50% hum idity and different with 90% humidity, where the latter will feel less pleasant because it’s harder to transfer body heat by sweating. Combination of temperature sensor 203 and relative humidity sensor 205 provides the feeling temperature inside the commercial site for livestock animals. The combination of temperature and relative humidity provides information on the environment in which the livestock animals grow. Deviations from the adequate environment for growing livestock animals can be detected early and possible disease outbreaks can be predicted earlier with this information. The LEDs 205 are positioned inside the housing and indicate the device status to the user. The colors of the LEDs 205 report both on the status of the hardware device itself as well as data issues. I n an example case, six LEDs are positioned inside the housing with a translucent cover for indicating the status of the device in the room . The color of the LEDs is indicative of the status of the commercial site for livestock animal such as purple color may indicate that the device is not connected to the internet, green color may indicate that the device is online and the status is ok, red color may indicate that there is a potential disease outbreak in a barn, preferably based on a very high amount of coughing, sneezing, snicking and/or scream ing in the barn, yellow color may indicate an intermediate state indicating the need of increased vigilance, etc.

The device comprises a light sensor 206 located in the interior of the bottom translucent part of the housing opposite to the LEDs such that it is not influenced by the light of LEDs. It is configured to measure the light intensity in the sites. The light sensor will be used to keep track of night and day. This can be the natural night and day or an artificial pattern of night and day imposed with lights in order to improve the growing of certain livestock animal species.

The device 200 comprises a loudspeaker 207 placed in the middle of the bottom part at the center of all the m icrophones. The placement ensures that it is equidistant from all the microphones and facilitates automatic quality measurements of the microphones. It allows for playing a predefined sound of known composition. When the microphones, which are lying just around it, record this sound resulting in microphone signals, the difference between the original sound played by the loudspeaker and the m icrophone signals, or the correlation between the original sound and the m icrophone signals, or the correlation between pairs of m icrophones, can provide information on the quality of the microphones. The loudspeaker is further configured to play sound for the livestock animals and/or workers, wherein the sound may include but not limited to a calm ing sound for the livestock animals, classical m usic or the sound of natural vocalizations of a mother animal, music to improve the work environment of the workers, etc. The combination of the loudspeaker and m icrophones makes the device interactive by allowing a farmer or administrator of the facility to interact using voice based com mands. The m icrophones pick up the voice of the farmer which is further analyzed by the processor to determ ine the appropriate response which is played to the farmer from the loudspeaker. The loudspeaker 207 and the m icrophones 202 may be further utilized to measure the acoustics of the room . With two or more m icrophones in combination with the loudspeaker a model can be made from the acoustics of the room , and can distinguish a big, reverberant room from a small, non-reverberant room . The knowledge about the acoustics of the room is beneficial for the classification of different sounds.

The monitoring device further comprises a processing module to process the output produced by the various sensors in combination with the output produced from the m icrophones to provide details related to the environm ent and the health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals.

The monitoring devices collect data using the sensors continuously and process the data using the processing module. The devices further upload the processed data along with raw sensor data to a web server.

The data m ay be sent to the server via a gateway connected to a wireless com m unication m eans network, preferably a Wi- Fi network. The gateway may include a wireless com m unication unit, preferably a Wi- Fi unit, and may be connected to the internet via a wireless com m unication means, preferably via Wi Fi, or wired connection. This gateway is to be plugged into the wall for power. Further, gateway provides a connection to one or more monitoring device in the com m ercial sites using a wireless com m unication means network, preferably a Wi- Fi- m esh network, and/or via a plurality of Ethernet cables suitable to physically connect the one or more monitoring devices to the gateway. Further, gateway is equipped with memory device to store data.

The data may be sent to the web server via the gateway connected to the wireless com m unication m eans, preferably the Wi- Fi, or to a wired network comprising a plurality of Ethernet cables suitable to physically connect the one or more monitoring devices to the gateway. The web server may perform analytics on the different data sets to create an analysis of the livestock animal’s health/welfare and surrounding environm ent and transm it to the user's mobile and web application .

Description of Figure 3

Figure 3 illustrates an example of user interface 300 displaying overview of different sites associated with the user. These can be sites where the user is the owner or sites where the owner has chosen to share the info with this user. The nam e of the user 301 is shown on the top right section of the user interface 300. User interface 300 further displays a Google map of the region where the sites associated with him are situated along with an indication of the sites. As shown in the figure, the map 302 shows three sites 303,304 and 305 associated with the user represented at 301 . User interface 300 provides an option bar at the top 305 where the user can view all sites associated with him or he can choose among particular places where his sites are located. The user can choose his preference by simply clicking on the“All sites” option or clicking on the nam e of the place of site. The option bar also provides an“add group" tab which can be utilized to add new sites to the user’s account for monitoring. On the left hand side of the user interface is provided a section which contains an option for updating or refreshing 307 the user interface 300. Further, the section provides a broader level sum mary of the sites associated with the user 301 . As shown in the figure, 308 shows a broader level sum mary of site 305, where the sum m ary includes the time when the site details were last updated , messages, alerts and notifications. At a tim e only three alerts/ notifications/ m essages can be viewed. To view more than three, there is an option of “show all” which can be clicked to access all the alerts/ notifications/ m essages associated with the site. User interface 300 only provides overview of all the sites associated with the user. To view detailed inform ation related to the any of the sites, the user needs to click on the particular sites and he will be redirected to a next section of user interface. As an example, a user named John Doe logs into the application for monitoring of his sites at Sioux centre, Mountainridge fields, Whittemore. These are all the sites associated with him as the option bar on top indicates that“all sites” is selected . The section on the left side of the user interface 300 shows a broader level sum m ary related to all the three sites. Sioux centre was last updated on Jan 1 ^st at 1 7: 45. There are 12 unread alerts associated with the sites. The latest three alerts are “Unusual amount of coughs in building east” received at 1 5 : 00, “Unusual temperature in Building East (37°C)” received at 1 5: 00 and“Unusual Hum idity in Building West (90% )” received at 1 5 : 00. Mountainridge fields has received 1 23 alerts and Whittemore has received 1 alert.

Description of Figure 4

Figure 4 illustrates an exam ple of user interface 400 displaying site details for sites associated with the user. The user is redirected to user interface 400 when user selects a particular site to view its details. User interface 400 provides details related to three m ain components - outside environm ental inform ation, building information and details on the buildings. The outside environm ental information is received from external weather forecast companies and is integrated in the application. User interface 400 further provides broader level sum mary of the other associated sites com prising num ber of m essages, alerts and notifications associated with each of the site.

As mentioned before, each site com prises one or more buildings and each of the one or more buildings comprises one or more airspaces. Airspace is a physical space without walls com prising one or more monitoring device. I n a preferred em bodim ent, the num ber of monitoring devices is related to the num ber of animals in an airspace. When pigs are selected as livestock animals, one monitoring device is preferably provided for 200-250 pigs. For example, an airspace comprising 1000 pigs preferably comprises 4 monitoring devices. Each monitoring device provides the status of the space it monitors, providing information related to the temperature, relative hum idity and livestock animal health and/or welfare status.

The user interface 400 displays the name of the site selected at the top 401. The top section of user interface 400 is a toolbar that contains clickable options, the options being “messages”, “alerts”, “notifications”, “devices" “users” and “settings”. Just below the toolbar, outside environmental information 403 of the particular site is displayed. Outside environmental conditions gives a fair idea to the user that what temperature should be maintained inside the building and he can set that the functioning of various components like heating system , ventilation systems, etc., accordingly.

Section 405 shows the buildings associated with that particular site. The user can select a particular building to view its details. The details are displayed just below the space where the outside environmental conditions are displayed, represented by 404. The building details comprise information related to number of airspaces in the building, health and/or welfare status in the airspaces 404a, temperature in the airspaces 404b, relative humidity in the airspaces 404c (or temperature and relative hum idity combined in temperature shock index) and status of the devices in the airspaces (offline / online) 404d. Any alert or warning condition can also be displayed. Section 404a shows the health and/or welfare status, for example indicated by an amount of coughs of the livestock animals, in the selected building for the previous day and present day, and a forecast of the health and/or welfare status for the next day. The health and/or welfare status for the three days is represented by a horizontal ribbon, wherein the ribbon comprises different colors to indicate the duration of warning levels of health and/or welfare and duration where the health and/or welfare, for example indicated by coughing of the livestock animals, reached alert status. Section 404b shows the temperature distribution in the selected building and also indicates the number of airspaces out of the total number of airspaces which show warning or alert. Section 404c shows the relative humidity levels in the selected building and also indicates the number of airspaces out of the total number of airspaces which show warning or alert. This may also be combined with temperature, and preferably as a temperature shock index which combines temperature and relative humidity information. Section 404d shows the status of the devices in the airspaces that are offline / online. On the left side of the user interface 400, broader level sum mary of the other associated sites is displayed 406. The broader level sum m ary comprises number of messages, alerts and notifications associated with each of the site.

As shown in the figure, the site selected for view by the user is Sioux center. The outside environm ent conditions indicate 1 5°C tem perature and 70% relative hum idity. Sioux center has many buildings, where the buildings are nam ed after the direction they are located at such as Building East, Building West, Building North, Building North-West, Building South, Building South-West, etc.

The building information 404a to 404d provides information related to health and/or welfare of the livestock anim als, temperature, status of the devices in the airspaces and relative hum idity of various air spaces of buildings. It displays warnings and alert related to air spaces of buildings in the site/ livestock anim al barn . As shown here for Building West, out of sixteen airspaces, one airspace is offline. Airspace may be offline due to various reasons like internet connectivity issues, device failure, etc. There are 12 airspaces which have an alarm ing condition for tem perature, while 1 2 have a warning condition for relative hum idity. The user can select any other building from the l ist of building to view its details. Further, user may click on the update option to update the data.

The application further com prises user interface (not shown) for im plem enting a chatroom for the users of the livestock anim al monitoring com m unity. The users can share screenshots, pictures and videos with each other. This feature allows the users to share their knowledge with other users and also seek help for certain issues.

An im portant feature of the application is that it provides personalized and intelligent early warning to the users. The early warning of alarm conditions is determ ined in reference to past recorded data (threshold values) .The users m ay be notified via SMS, m ail or push notifications.

The application allows the user to download the daily or weekly or monthly reports from the web server in any of PDF, Excel, CSV, or word document form at.

Description of Figu re 5

Figure 5a and Figure 5b shows an exam ple of user interface for monitoring of com m ercial sites for livestock animals on mobile. The mobile application can be easily installed on the smartphones of the users from the Goog le Play store, Apple App Store and Microsoft Store. The user interface of mobile provides fast overview of the status of different sites and buildings on the move. The user interface which can be easily displayed on a single screen of web interface is divided into two on mobile interface which is shown in figures 5a and 5b. Figure 5a displays the overview of different sites along with the m essage, alert and notification associated with each site. I t further provides the inform ation related to the tim e of last data update for each site as well as active or offline status of the devices on the site. 501 provide the option to display either the sites or m ap of sites that locates all the sites on a Google m aps screen. When user clicks the m ap option 502, he will be redirected to the user interface shown in figure 5b. Figure 5b shows a Google m ap showing all the sites located in a particular region . It displays whether any site is in alarm condition by h ighlighting the particular site with red color. If user wants to see detailed view, he can click on any of the sites like web user interface.

Fig u re 6

Figure 6 illustrates a schematic representation of a system 600 for monitoring the status of a livestock facility 601 , wherein the status of the livestock facility 601 includes health and/or welfare of livestock animals when inside the livestock facility 601 and/or m anagement status of external systems 602-608 when installed in the facility 601 . The system com prises a livestock facility 601 and a device 200 according to Figure 2 placed inside the livestock facility 601 . For a description of the embodim ent of the device 200 shown in Figure 6 is referred to the description of Figure 2 above. As can be seen in Figure 6, the device 200 is placed centrally inside the livestock facility 601 and is specifically attached to the ceiling 609 in a downwards-oriented fashion. Accordingly, the device 200 is ideally suited for monitoring the status of a livestock facility 601 , wherein the status of the livestock facility 601 includes health and/or welfare of livestock animals inside the livestock facility and/or m anagement status of external systems 602-608 installed in the facility 601 . I nside the livestock facility 601 , the following external systems are placed : feeding lines 602, water lines 603 as types of drinking systems, sprinklers 604, a ventilation system 605, a heating lam p 606 as a type of heating system , a pressure wash system 607 as type of cleaning system , and a radio 608 as a type of m usic system . For the monitoring by the device 200 of said status of the livestock facility 601 and for exem plary embodim ents of the device intended for this purpose is referred to the discussion of Figure 2 above. The system shown in Figure 6 may also com prise a mobile apparatus, preferably a mobile phone, configured to receive output from the device, to store said output and to process said output. I n the em bodim ent according to Fig. 6, the device 200 is placed centrally in an area with a diameter of 20 m (which is the area of the livestock facility 601 intended to accommodate livestock animals). For example, 200 to 250 pigs may be accom modated in an area with a diameter of 20 m. For example, 4000-6000 chickens may be accom modated in an area with a diameter of 20 m . Accordingly, the system 600 including the device 100 according to Figure 6 is suitable for accom modating and monitoring 200 to 250 pigs or 4000-6000 chickens. I n larger livestock facilities, multiple devices are required to monitor the livestock animals. For example, 4 devices in a typical pig farm with 1000 animals, and 5 devices in a typical chicken farm with 25000 animals.

The preceding description of the disclosed embodiments is provided to enable a person skilled in the art to make or use the present invention. Various modifications of these embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown herein but to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the following claims and the principles and features disclosed herein.

Claims

CLAS MS

1. A method for intelligent monitoring of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals, wherein each of the sites comprises one or more buildings, each of the buildings comprising one or more airspaces, and each of the airspaces comprising one or more monitoring devices (101) equipped with one or more sensors, the method comprising the steps of:

a. obtaining data captured by the one or more sensorsof monitoring devices and uploading said data to a web server (102) ;

b. accessing web server data related to one or more commercial sites for livestock animals on a mobile terminal (103) of user to report the status of commercial sites and health and/or welfare status of the livestock animal wherein the reporting comprises:

i. indicating the detailed status of one or more commercial sites for livestock animals based on user selection wherein the detailed status comprises outside environmental conditions (403) , temperature (404b) , relative humidity (404c) , status of each airspace of the building (404b) and health and/or welfare status (404a) of the livestock animals;

c. providing personalized notifications to the user associated with one or more sites indicating site status and early warning of alarm conditions, wherein the method further comprises alarming for functioning or malfunctioning of one of the installations in the airspace selected from the list comprising heating systems, ventilation systems, feeding lines, drinking systems, sprinklers, cleaning systems and/or artificial lights.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the one or more monitoring devices (101) comprise one or more microphones and wherein data captured by the one or more m icrophones are obtained and uploaded to a web server (102) .

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the reporting further comprises displaying a map (302) of the region comprising one or more commercial sites (303, 304, 305) for livestock animals associated with the user to indicate a broader level sum mary (308) associated with one or more com mercial sites (303, 304, 305) wherein the broader level sum mary (308) comprises site name, location, count of messages, alert and notification related to each site and visual indication to represent any alarming condition related to any site.

4. The m ethod according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 3, wherein the mobile term inal of user is a remote com puting device which is selected from to the list comprising laptop, desktop, PC, smart phone and tablet.

5. The m ethod according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 4, wherein the data captured by the one or more sensors is data captured by one or more sensors selected from the group comprising temperature sensors, relative hum idity sensors, color and light intensity sensors, and gas sensors.

6. The m ethod according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 5, wherein the data captured by one or more m icrophones comprises sound generated by livestock anim als and/or environm ental sound data associated with one or more airspaces.

7. The m ethod according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 6, wherein the data captured by monitoring devices is filtered and analyzed in reference to past recorded data to indicate the current status of each airspace of the building and health and/or welfare status of the livestock anim als.

8. The m ethod according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 7, wherein the health and/or welfare status of the livestock animals, thermal discomfort with air tem perature and relative hum idity status in the one or more airspaces, or com bined in a temperature hum idity index, or a tem perature shock, is represented via visual indicators to indicate warning and alarm condition if any.

9. The m ethod according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 8, wherein the status of each airspace of the building indicates the active and offline status of the total number of devices associated with the airspace.

1 0. The m ethod according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 9, wherein the detailed status com prises inform ation specific to single site selected by the user and broader level sum mary of the other associated sites.

1 1 . The method according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 1 0, wherein the user can download the daily or weekly or monthly reports from the web server in m ultiple formats of spreadsheet and/or word processing applications and/or pdf.

1 2. The method according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 1 1 , wherein the personalized notifications are selected from the list com prising notification via SMS, e-m ail, push notification via app, or any combination thereof.

13. The method according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 12, wherein the user can interact using chatroom facility or message board to share notes and comments with different users.

14. The method according to any one of the preceding claim 1 to 13, wherein the early warning of alarm conditions is determined in reference to past recorded data.

15. Th e method according to any of the preceding claims 1 to 14, wherein the livestock animals are selected from the group consisting of cattle, pigs, horses, goats, poultry, pets and any animal which can be raised in livestock facilities.