See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/331847901

A Smart Auto-Balanced System for Incubation Process

Conference Paper · January 2019

DOI: 10.1109/ICREST.2019.8644295

CITATIONS READS
0 2,612

2 authors, including:

Md.Tarikul Islam Juel

Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology
5 PUBLICATIONS   5 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

A Smart Auto-Balanced System for Incubation Process View project

Smart Gas Furnace View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Md.Tarikul Islam Juel on 25 April 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 A Smart Auto-Balanced System for Incubation
Process
1st Md. Tarikul Islam Juel
Electrical and Electronics Engineering
American International University-Bangladesh
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email: md.tarikulislamjuel@gmail.com
Abstract—Temperature and humidity are the main parameters
to be controlled in a hatching system for incubation process.
Maintaining of these highly sensitive natural elements is one of
the major steps to breed healthy chicks in a hatching process. On
the basis of providing an order of standardizing the operation and
care to monitor the desired temperature and relative humidity,
this article proposes a system of incubation for the hatching of
turkey birds. This incubation system is developed based on micro-
controller chip name ATMEGA32 using DHT22 temperature and
humidity sensor. For monitoring purpose, LCD 20x4 display is
used as well as Android application. For the feature of user
control system, button and Android application were used. This
incubator is also very user-friendly and temperature and humid-
ity can be calibrated externally if needed. And another purpose
of this project is to make this incubation system affordable to all
the people involved with hatchery farm.
Index Terms—Incubator, ATMEGA32, DHT22 sensor, Android
application, Error compensation, Dual power system
I. I NTRODUCTION
Hatching is a process where bird sits on its eggs to give
birth of baby chicks where temperature and humidity are
naturally maintained. Incubation is an artificial process, which
creates a hatching environment inside an isolated chamber
.The incubation process includes improvement in hatching
rate of different types of bird’s eggs. This technology mainly
focuses on controlling the temperature and humidity in the
proper way [1][2]. Birth of nutritious and healthy turkey birds
depends on proper hatching system. The hatching system is
mainly based on proper temperature and humidity. These two
factors will dominate the rate of hatchability [1]. If these two
factors are not maintained properly at an optimum level, there
is a great possibility of getting paralyzed and weak baby turkey
called chick. These may lead to a huge amount of loss for
hatching industry. Hence, to reduce the birth of unhealthy
and weak chick, a technology must be developed that could
maintain temperature and humidity at an optimal level for
the hatching process. In addition to that, for better hatching
rate each and, every egg should be checked properly whether
the egg is fertile or not. Moreover, it should be noticed that
whether there is any crake in the eggs or not.
A large number of works has been done to develop the
incubation process for hatchery and poultry farms. For exam-
ple, Wu Shu-ci, Zhou Guo-xiong, Yan Mi-ying, Zhou Kai and
2nd Md. Sajid Ahmed
Electrical and Electronics Engineering
American International University-Bangladesh
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email: md.sajidahmedtalukder@gmail.com
Zheng Rui-ling proposed an intelligent control of an incubator
system based on PID control algorithm [3]. The transcendent
process was developed by Wang Wanliang and Zhao Yanwei,
they used multivariable and decoupling design scheme that
gives a view of an excellent control of an incubator [4].
Moreover, fuzzy control method was used to control the level
of temperature and humidity inside the incubator chamber
[5][6].
All the previous works mentioned in this paper has given a
message that many people researched this system with a target
to contribute in the development of the hatching industry. This
paper has introduced some new features in the incubation
process, which has made the device more user-friendly. This
paper has also proposed a design of uninterrupted power
system to increase the hatching rate, which has made the
system more reliable.
Though hatching of different birds is possible through incu-
bation system, this paper has mainly focused on the hatching
of turkey birds since hatching of different birds requires a
different level of temperature and humidity. Mainly, there are
two stages in hatching periods of turkey birds: incubation
period and brooding period [7]. Length of the incubation
period is first twenty-four days and last three days are known
as a brooding period [7]. For both periods of turkey birds, the
range of temperature should be 37.7°c to 37.9°c and humidity
level should in between 60% to 65% in the incubation period
and 80% to 85% in the brooding period [7]. During the whole
hatching period, a constant power supply is essential; since
every incubator is sensitive to the required level of temperature
and pressure. In this paper, system algorithm of proposed smart
auto balanced incubation system is shown in section II. Section
III and section IV describes the development of hardware
circuitry and design of PCB layout with incubator body
structure respectively. Section V narrates software portion for
ease of use. Simulation and result analysis of this system are
discussed in section VI. And section VII shows a practical
view of implementation of this whole system.
II. S YSTEM ALGORITHM
The system algorithm shows the gist of the process of
working and command given to the incubator in figure 1. At
first, after initialization of the system, the system moves to the
 then it will move to the sensor data read stage.
III. H ARDWARE CIRCUITRY
The circuitry part of hardware section is designed along
with power unit of converting ac power to desired dc power,
detection unit for sensing temperature and humidity, control-
ling unit for maintaining required level of temperature and
humidity, communication unit for making a communication
bridge between incubator and android mobile phone and
output unit for the purpose of showing real-time data collected
from sensor. A block diagram of the whole process is shown
in figure 2.

Fig. 1. System flowchart

Fig. 2. Block diagram of the whole system

battery level detection stage. If the battery is fully charged,

the PV array solar system will be used as a power source.
Otherwise, national grid AC supply will be used. Then the
system arrives at an ideal condition and then it will read the
sensor data in the next stage. If the sensor data is missing, a
buzzer will automatically ring up and then moves to the ideal
state again. And if the sensor workes perfectly , the system
will be moved to the next stage to check the temperature level.
If the temperature is greater than 37.7 the light will turn off
otherwise the light will turn on to increase the temperature
up to 37.7°c inside the chamber. Then the system will move
to a stage where it counts the number of passing days. If the
number of days passed is greater than 24 days and humidity
level greater than 85% then exhaust fan will be turned on and
Fig. 3. Implemented hardware circuit section
heater will be turned off and vice versa if the humidity level
is less than 85%. And, if the number of days passed is less The internal implemented circuitry of incubator controller
than 24days and humidity level greater than 65% then exhaust is shown in figure 3.
fan will be turned on and heater will be turned off and vice
versa if the humidity level is less than 65%. Then the output A. Power unit
will be displayed on the LCD and will be sent to the android In this project, there are two units of the power source.
application of user via Bluetooth communication. Now the One is the AC power supply from the national power grid
system will cross check again whether the system is unstable and another is from a solar panel system. The produced
or not. If the system becomes unstable, the buzzer will ring electricity from the PV array is controlled by a battery charge
and will go to the ideal state. But, if the system remains stable controller to charge up a 12V dc battery. Afterward, with the
help of inverter, this dc voltage is inverted into AC voltage.
Then both the AC supply source and PV cell-generated power
source is connected to a power switching relay. A battery
level monitoring unit is connected to the microcontroller which
sends data of the storage level of the 12V battery to the
microcontroller. Based on this data the microcontroller will
control the power switching relay to select the power source.
One of the major objectives of this project is to ensure
uninterruptible power supply to maintain an optimum level of
temperature and humidity for perfect hatching of eggs. During
load-shedding,, the source of power supply automatically
switches from national grid power supply to battery stored
power supply to run the system alive. This switching from
one power supply to another is done with the help of a power
switching relay, where the battery power considered as backup
power source is basically connected with the system through
relay NC (normally close) pin. When the load shedding takes
place, which means microcontroller shutdowns due to load
shedding. Then relay pin switches from NO (normally open) to
NC automatically and the whole system gets alive again due to
battery power source, which is normally connected with relay
NC pin. In this system, majority electrical components such as
a microcontroller, Bluetooth module, LCD display and so on
are operated at rated 5 volts. Thus, to maintain this constant 5V
supply from 220V AC supply; first of all, 220V AC supply
is stepped down to 12V using a step-down transformer and
bridge rectifier is used to invert ac power into dc power. After
that, to maintain constant 5V as output, a 5V buck regulator
is used as shown in figure 4.
Fig. 4. Buck regulator circuitry [6]
B. Detection unit
a) Temperature and humidity detection: For the purpose
of sensing temperature and humidity, the DHT22 sensor is
used in this system. This sensor can detect temperature from
-40°c to 125°c where the error level for temperature is only
±0.5°c [8]. And for humidity, the error level is about ± (2-
5%) [8]. The operating voltage of this module is 3-5V [8].
In this project, this module sends the real-time data to the
microcontroller in every two seconds since it operates at a
frequency level of 2 Hz [8]. In this way, microcontroller
regulates a constant temperature and humidity inside the
incubation chamber with the help of DHT22.
b) Battery storage level detection: A battery level in-
dicator is connected to a microcontroller which continuously
monitors the battery level status and sends information to the
microcontroller to select the main power source. When the
battery is fully charged up, grid power source is automatically
switched to a solar power source to minimize the cost of
consuming power from the national grid.
C. Controlling unit
a) Microcontroller: As a processing unit, a microcon-
troller (Model name: ATMEGA32) of Atmel series is used
in this project. This chip mainly controls the whole system.
It is a low power consumption device. ATMEGA32 receives
temperature and humidity data from the DHT22 sensor; it then
processes the received data. With the help of this data and
predefine command written in the algorithm, its drives the
whole system.
b) Real-time clock: Since temperature and humidity level
of two hatching periods for incubations system of eggs of
turkey birds are different, a real-time clock (RTC) is used
to maintain the defined temperature and humidity level for
two periods. After finishing the incubation period, the real-
time clock sends a signal to the microcontroller. And the
microcontroller sets a new level of temperature and humidity
for the brooding period and control these two main factors
accordingly.
c) Temperature and humidity control: By using DHT22,
this chip maintains a constant desired temperature and humid-
ity inside the incubation chamber. If the temperature inside
the chamber falls below 37.7°c in the incubation period also
in the brooding period and humidity decreases below 60%
in the incubation process and 80% in the brooding period
then the ATMEGA32 triggers all the relay to switch on the
bulb and heater for increasing the temperature and humidity
respectively. And if the temperature rises above 37.9°c in both
periods and humidity increases above 65% in the incubation
process and 85% in the brooding period then ATMEGA32 will
switch on the exhaust fan, switch off the bulb and the heater
with the help of a relay. Another goal of this project is to
control multiple chambers of the incubator by using a single
controller. It reduces the cost of the device and minimizes the
installation space.
d) User input system:: There are some buttons for a
user command. If any user gets an error in the temperature
and humidity data, the user can calibrate the temperature and
humidity level inside the incubator chamber manually. There
is also a reset button whose function is to reset all the data
and restore to the default value of temperature(37.7°c) and
humidity (65% for incubation period and 85% for the brooding
period) written in the algorithm.
D. Communication part
In this system, a Bluetooth module (Model: HC-05) is used
for wireless communication between incubator controller and
android mobile phone. The operation voltage for this module
is 5V [9]. Mainly, HC-05 operates with serial communication
using the UART protocol [9]. This module uses two pins
(Rx and Tx) of the microcontroller to make a full duplex
serial communication between android mobile phone and and outer part. The radius of the inner and outer parts are 20
microcontroller to exchange information. inches and 21 inches respectively. Height is considered as 30
inches. In between the inner and outer parts, the wood powder
E. Memory unit was used since it is a good insulating material and very cost
This project consists of a user input system for calibrating effective.
the threshold level of temperature and humidity. So, for
recording those data, a nonvolatile memory is required. In this
project, the internal EEPROM of ATMEGA32 is used as a
nonvolatile memory to record user input data due to sudden
power loss. EEPROM size of ATMEGA32 is 1024 bytes which
are sufficient to stored data for this project.
F. Output unit
a) LCD display: A 20x4 LCD display is used to show
different types of data such as real-time data of temperature
and humidity inside the incubation chamber, number of days
passed from the begging of the hatching, calibrated data set
by the user, battery voltage level status, a notification status
that which relay is on or off as well as bulb, exhaust fan and Fig. 6. SolidWorks design of the mechanical structure of the incubator
chamber
heater.
b) Buzzer: When this incubation system goes into an
unsafe condition like low humidity and low temperature or V. S OFTWARE PORTION
over humidity and over temperature due to any malfunction For user convenience, an android application is used to get
in the system, the buzzer will ring as an alarming notification. different types of information like real-time data of temper-
The time when load shedding occurs and the battery storage ature and humidity, incubation period, voltage level status of
level gets low, that time the buzzer will automatically ring up the battery and the current state of light, exhaust fan and heater
to notify the user. that which of them are switched on or off. Also, the user can
IV. D ESIGN OF PCB LAYOUT AND INCUBATOR BODY calibrate temperature and humidity level by using this android
STRUCTURE
application as shown in figure 7.
A. PCB design
The PCB layout design is shown in figure 5.In this layout,
the width of the copper wire, 1.27 and 2.54 mm are used and
the clearance between two wires is 1.016 mm. It is a single
layer PCB design.

Fig. 5. PCB design using Eagle Cad software Fig. 7. User interface of the android application

B. SolidWorks design of incubator chamber VI. C IRCUIT SIMULATION

It is very simple to build the mechanical structure of the
incubator chamber shown in figure 6. The surrounding body
structure was built with a plane tin sheet and the basement
structure is made of iron. At the peripheral side of the
incubator chamber, there are two segments - the inner part
A. Circuit simulation
This is the circuit simulation of the system designed by
Proteus simulator. The reading of temperature and humidity
inside two separated incubator chambers is displayed on the
LCD display. Inside the incubator chamber 1 and 2, the reading
of temperature is 37.8 and 37.6 consecutively and the reading
of humidity is 60.5% and 61.2% respectively. Inside both
incubators, the level of temperature and humidity is under
control, which is shown in figure 8 and figure 9.
Fig. 8. Circuit simulation using Proteus simulator
Fig. 9. Circuit simulation output on the LCD display
VII. R ESULT AND COST ANALYSIS
A. Practical and statistical data finding of temperature and
humidity:
Fig. 10. Deviation of temperature with respect to time in one hour
Fig. 11. Deviation of percentage in humidity with respect to time in one hour
Here some readings of temperature and humidity per minute
shown in figure 10 and figure 11 are collected from the LCD
display got from the DHT22 sensor during the incubation
period. A graph of fluctuation in temperature and humidity
level inside the incubator body is shown above. It is seen
that there is a little amount of deviation in temperature and
humidity readings taken per minute, which does not affect
the stability of the system. Therefore, the system is following
required level of temperature and humidity. Thus, the design
system algorithm makes the whole process stable and helps to
fulfill the target of hatching.
B. Cost analysis
In Table 1, the total cost of the device which has the ability
to hatch around 180 turkey bird’s eggs that is implemented is
around 13 thousand taka and the product that is existing now
a days is about 30-35 thousand taka in Bangladeshi currency
The components of our device were bought in retailer price.
So, if this device is manufactured in large scale, the cost will
be minimized more. On the other sides, our device is more
improved version and user friendly than the existing device
since this device has some extra features like android control,
backup power source with renewable energy, alarming system
for protection of eggs and power system protection etc. So, it
is tough to get an incubator controller along with these extra
features in the present market with in the price mentioned in
the Table 1. Hence this product is cost effective.
TABLE I
TABLE OF COST ANALYSIS OF COMPONENTS
VIII. P RACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE WHOLE
SYSTEM
The picture in figure 12 gives a view of a practical imple-
mentation of this project. Here it is seen that some eggs of
turkey birds are put into the incubator for hatching purpose.
And this system worked in a controlled way.
 [6] Su Tao, Yao Kaixue. The Fuzzy-PI-based dual-mode control system.
Control Engineering of China, 2005, 7 (12): pp. 145-148
[7] Bertin, Aline, et al. “Incubation Temperature Affects the Expression
of Young Precocial Birds’ Fear-Related Behaviours and Neuroen-
docrine Correlates.” Scientific Reports, vol. 8, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1–3.,
doi:10.1038/s41598-018-20319-y.
[8] Ioan LITA, Daniel Alexandru VISAN, Ion Bogdan CIOC, Alin Gheo-
rghita MAZARE, Rodica Mihaela TEODORESCU. Indoor Environmen-
tal Parameters Monitoring for Building Automation Systems. Ploiesti,
ROMÂNIA: International Conference – 8th Edition Electronics, Com-
puters and Artificial Intelligence, 2016, pp. 1-3.
[9] D. Sunehra, M. Veena. Implementation of interactive home automa-
tion systems based on email and Bluetooth technologies. International
Conference on Information Processing (ICIP), Vishwakarma Institute of
Technology, 2015, pp. 458-463.

Fig. 12. Practical view of whole incubation system

IX. C ONCLUSION
This paper shows a study of implementing a basic control of
temperature and humidity inside an incubator chamber, which
gives us an optimized and stable system. In addition, this
system can be monitored and controlled by the user via an
android application, which is one of the important features
of this system. Another significant feature is the user manual
control system where the user can compensate the system
error manually if required. Besides, another important feature
of this system is power consumption and cost minimization
which is accomplished by designing a two-way power source
for running the whole system. Still, there are some scopes to
improve the system and make the system more user-friendly.
Since the system feature includes wireless communication
using Bluetooth module, which range is low, in future this
system feature can be improved more using WIFI or GSM
communication. Also, the system malfunction alarming system
can also be made better.
R EFERENCES
[1] Ruilan Wang, The design of temperature and humidity control sys-
tem in multi incubators based on single chip microcontroller. DOI:
10.1109/AIMSEC.2011.6010005. Shandong Weifang, Chaina: 2011, pp.
1.
[2] Wei Long, Fugui Li, Liang Luo, Xingyuan Zhang. The design of
Temperature and Humidity Control System for Incubation based on data
Fusion and Fuzzy Decoupling. Beijing, Chaina: International Conference
on Mechatronics and Automation, 2015, pp. 1.
[3] W. Shu-ci, Z. Guo-xiong, Y. Mi-ying, Z. Kai and Z. Rui-ling, Research
of Hybrid Intelligent Control for Incubation. Hanoi, Vietnam: 10th Intl.
Conf. on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision, 2008: pp. 1-2.
[4] Wang Wanliang, Wu Qidi, Zhao Yanwei, et al. Multivariable fuzzy expert
controller for poultry incubator. Transactions of the Chinese Society for
Agriculture Machinery, 1998, 29 (3): pp. 84-89
[5] Cai bing. Design and Realization of Intelligent Control System for
Incubation. Journal of UEST of China, 2004, 33 (2): pp. 188-191

View publication stats