SYSTEM OF AUTOMATIC CONTROL OF POULTRY FACTORY LIGHTING IN "SUNRISE-SUNSET" MODES

Abstract

Lighting in the poultry house plays an important role in raising chickens of all directions and allows to control the processes of physiological development of poultry, provide more comfortable conditions for its keeping and achieve a significant increase in almost all indicators of poultry productivity, and also to increase the survival rate of chicken, reduce feed costs and improve their digestibility, reduce injuries in poultry and decrease electricity consumption by 1.5-3 times. Besides, one of the factors that can negatively affect the poultry’s condition is a sharp turning on/off lighting. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a smooth "sunrise-sunset" in the poultry house, especially for laying hens. Moreover, it is not recommended to raise chickens under constant lighting. The article proposes the structure of an automatic lighting system in the "sunrise-sunset" modes, consisting of a programmable relay PR200 and a dimmer of LED lighting with a capacity of 4,500 W, which simulates the sunrise and sunset in a poultry farm. Programming of the PR200 relay does not require special skills, since it is carried out using a simple and intuitive programming environment OWENLogic. The algorithm of equipment operation is created in the language of FBD functional blocks which are contained in the attached library. The program is written into the relay memory using a standard MiniUSB-cable. Mathematical dependences of control signals on time of day and the chosen mode of change of illumi-nation of a poultry house in the "sunrise-sunset" modes have been formed. The voltage at the output of the relay increases by 9.26 mV every 1.1 seconds. The voltage will decrease by the same value with a time resolution of 1.1 seconds in the "sunset" mode, however, the flickering of light will be imperceptible to the eyes of people and poultry. There are three operation modes of the automatic control system for lighting the poultry farm: at 100 %, 92.5 % and 85 % of the brightness of lighting in the win-ter, spring/autumn and summer seasons of the year, respectively. To do this, one of three programs must be loaded into the PR200 software relay that can be activated by corresponding buttons on the control panel, the signals from which are fed to the digital inputs of the relay. These changes will save electricity in spring/autumn by 7.5 %, and in summer by 15 %.