A low-cost smart egg-incubator

Abstract

Poultry is one of the most consumed agricultural produce in Ghana. Because of this high demand, the problem necessitates efforts to maximize the yield of poultry production in the country. Relying on natural means of hatching eggs to increase poultry production is inefficient thus the need for technologies that will aid in maximizing the yield. Artificial means of solving this problem have brought about the invention of the incubator. Although this has helped in large-scale incubation, incubators in the market are very expensive which makes Ghanaian poultry farmers find it difficult to purchase. This project investigates the design and implementation of an affordable, automated incubator for local poultry farmers. It is aimed at designing a low-cost smart incubator to ensure the maintenance of the optimum environmental conditions necessary for hatching eggs. These conditions: Ventilation, Temperature, Relative Humidity, regular positioning, and eggs turnings are kept at their optimal values to efficiently increase the hatchability rate. Temperature and humidity sensors are used to read temperature and humidity values inside the incubator respectively. These values are sent to a microcontroller which then coordinates other parts of the incubator to execute automated tasks. A mobile application is integrated with the incubator for the communication of important information to the poultry farmer.