A VIRTUAL CHICKEN FOR CLIMATE CONTROL DESIGN: STATIC AND DYNAMIC SIMULATIONS OF HEAT LOSSES

The simulation of the effects of different control strategies on the interior climate in animal houses has been a frequent focus of research work for the last 30 years. Only in a few cases have realistic computer simulations of animal occupants been used in the development of new climate control strategies. The aim of this research was to develop a virtual chicken (VirChick) for computer-aided design and engineering of climate controllers for poultry houses. The objective was to develop a dynamic simulation model of the energy and mass transfer between the chicken and its thermal environment as a first step in the making of a VirChick. A static as well as dynamic model of heat loss for VirChick was developed. Two experiments were performed to generate data for the evaluation of the static heat loss model. It was demonstrated that the modeling results for the heat loss components were in agreement with data found in the literature. Furthermore, on the basis of three dynamic experiments, it was demonstrated that dynamic responses of total heat loss to step variations in temperature (ranging from 18°C to 35°C) could be modeled with a correlation coefficient between measured and simulated total heat loss of 0.83 to 0.96. In the future, such a virtual chicken can be equipped with many more properties, such as realistic locomotion, thermoregulatory and other behaviors, artificial intelligence, etc.