Sistema de aquisição de sinal para avaliação de movimentos mandibulares em bovinos

Abstract

With the growing need to increase the efficiency of livestock production, without increasing the pasture area, the main alternative comes from the concept of precision livestock, which basically makes use of tools to provide information on animal health, welfare and productivity for making faster and more assertive management decisions. Among these tools, there are mechanical sensors, which are directly related to the monitoring of mandibular movements for the extraction of ingestive parameters of the animal. These ingestive parameters are relevant to show animal welfare, as changes in rumination time, for example, can indicate acute stress and disease. Since the sensors available on the market today have high cost and low accessibility, the objective of this work is to develop a signal acquisition system for the evaluation of mandibular movements in cattle through a pressure sensor connected to a sealed tube positioned in the jaw of the animal. An evaluation of the existing methods for defining the parameters of the system to be developed was carried out. The system could not be tested on animals, due to the unavailability of IAPAR caused by the pandemic, but preliminary tests were carried out in which the system showed an average consumption of 12.2 mA, with a continuous operation autonomy of 55 hours and demonstrated reliability in data acquisition with a functioning of the sensor instrumentation circuit, data transmission via textit bluetooth and data storage on the SD card as expected. We hope that this system can contribute to the advancement of precision livestock in the region and enable data extraction for the indirect study of animal behavior, contributing to animal welfare and consequently the sustainable development of livestock industry in Brazil.