Two ITS Students Initiated a Smart Cage System to Help Farmers

(from left) Faiq Sina Alfian and Fikri Azrur Arif Maulana demonstrate their team’s idea to help broiler chicken farmers in Indonesia

ITS Campus, ITS News – High number of broiler chicken consumption in Indonesia makes farmers often feel overwhelmed. Therefore, two ITS students initiated the design innovation of broiler chicken coop system integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT)

The innovation was written in an essay that is expected to help solve the problems of broiler chicken farmers during this time.

They are Faiq Sina Alfain and Fikri Azrur Arif Maulana. Both are students of the Department of Industrial Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Vocational ITS.

Faiq Sina Alfain, the team’s chairman, said that the high level of consumption of broiler chicken in Indonesia overwhelmed farmers to meet the needs of the market. It’s because farmers still do manual feeding and drinking. “Many farmers do not know about technological developments, especially in the livestock industry,” he said.

Students of this class of 2018 continued, another reason that the background of this idea emerged among them are farmers who have to spend more to hire workers. This is done to help the needs of the cage such as turning on the heating lamp, cooling fan, and closing the cage when it rains. This is because farmers in Indonesia are considered to still use an open house type cage system.

Smart cage prototype that has been integrated with IoT made by ITS student team from Industrial Mechanical Engineering

This student who is often called Sina said that to help solve the problem, he and his friend designed technology in the field of livestock. Their idea was written in an essay titled SCH.id: Design an Internet of Things (IoT) Integrated Intelligent Cage System for Broiler Open House Chicken Farms to Realize the Industrial Revolution 4.0 in The Face of SDGs 2030.

Sina explained that SCH.id a system that can engineer the temperature of an open house-type chicken coop. The design process of the SCH.id system is carried out by combining electronic components such as microcontrollers, NodeMCU, solenoid valves, Real-Time Clock (RTC), relays, servo motors, and temperature sensors. “The components are combined into one piece,” he explained.

Application display connected to the design of intelligent cage system idea of ITS Industrial Mechanical Engineering student team

The student from Lamongan explained, the process of working from the SCH.id system is to connect the application as the main controller on the system with the help of a Wi-Fi network. Once connected, the temperature sensor will send data to the app to the user to control the temperature of the cage, feed, and drink as scheduled, and close the cage when it rains.

BpPT’s flagship high school alumnus Al-Fattah Lamongan said that this intelligent cage system is considered effective because it is able to engineer the broiler open house chicken coop into a cage that is easy to monitor. Therefore, with this system, the productivity of broiler chicken commodities will increase even if using the open house cage system.

Through this idea, they have won second place in the Fosmapet Essay Competition 2020. The race, held in mid-August 2020, resulted in Sina successfully defeating approximately 138 participants from all over Indonesia.

Sina hopes that the design of innovation made by his team can be developed. Not only that, but he also wants this smart open house cage system to be applied by all farmers in Indonesia. “That way, farmers can increase the productivity of broiler chicken commodities by suppressing lower maintenance operational costs,” he said. (dil/Anjani/Public Relation Officer ITS)