Development of an arduino based real time environmental monitor for animal facilities

Abstract

Animal facilities are installations of great importance for the advancement of animal research, since it is where the activities of animal breeding, maintenance and experimentation are carried out. Based on this assumption, the present dissertation addresses the development of a monitoring system for environmental factors such as temperature, relative humidity, ammonia and luminosity in an automated way through open source hardware and software aiming at a low cost, accessible prototype that will contribute to guarantee animal welfare, the technical management of the facilities, shared monitoring in real time, decision making in case of irregularities in the observed factors and computerized systemic record. After installing the prototype in the breeding room of the IPEN animal facility, tests were carried out with calibrated detectors in order to validate the readings. Our data confirm the positive correlation obtained, thus validating the adoption of the open source sensor as a tool for monitoring.