A new intelligent electronic nose system for measuring and analysing livestock and poultry farm odours

Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on August 27, 2013

In livestock and poultry farming, odour measurement and reduction are necessary for a cleaner environment, lower health risks to humans,  and higher quality of livestock and poultry production. This paper introduces a new portable intelligent electronic nose system developed especially for measuring and analysing livestock and poultry farm odours. It can be used in both laboratory and field. The sensor array of the proposed electronic nose consists of 14 gas sensors, a humidity sensor, and a temperature sensor. The  gas sensors were especially selected for the main compounds from the livestock farm odours.  An expert system called “Odour Expert” was developed to support researchers’ and farmers’ decision making on odour control strategies for livestock and poultry operations. “Odour Expert” utilises several advanced artificial intelligence technologies tailored to livestock and poultry farm odours. It can provide more advanced odour analysis than existing commercially available products. In addition, a rank of odour generation factors is provided, which refines the focus of odour control research. It is easier and cheaper to operate than using olfactometry or human panel. Thus it has good commercial potential. Field experiments were conducted downwind from the barns on 14 livestock and poultry farms. Experimental results show that the predicted odour strengths by the electronic nose yield higher consistency in comparison to the perceived odour intensity by human panel. The “Odour Expert” is a useful tool for assisting farmers’ odour management practises.

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