On-line measurement of bioresponses for model-based climate control in animal production units

In present climate controllers in animal production units we do not take into account any physiological or behavioral responses measured on the animal itself, although the living organism is the most important process part. A major step in the development of more optimal climate controllers, could be to measure and feed back relevant responses of the animal to its varying environment. Even more efficient would be a model-based controller using the bioresponses as feed back signal. The objective of the research reported in this paper is to measure and model the dynamic response of the heat production of broiler chickens to variations in temperature and light-dark alterations. It is demonstrated in this research that this response can be predicted, based on the developed dynamic models, with a relative prediction error ranging from 2.7 to 7.8%.