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Include a 3-5 paragraph summary of the article and include any specific benefits or drawbacks to cloud databases.  Your written work should include proper in-text and reference listing in APA format. animals Article Design and Implementation of Poultry Farming Information Management System Based on Cloud Database Haikun Zheng 1 , Tiemin Zhang 1,2,3,*, Cheng Fang 1 , Jiayuan Zeng 1 and Xiuli Yang 1 ���������� ������� Citation: Zheng, H.; Zhang, T.; Fang, C.; Zeng, J.; Yang, X. Design and Implementation of Poultry Farming Information Management System Based on Cloud Database. Animals 2021, 11, 900. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/ani11030900 Academic Editors: Yang Zhao, Weichao Zheng, María Cambra-López and Daniella Jorge De Moura Received: 2 February 2021 Accepted: 19 March 2021 Published: 22 March 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, 483 Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510642, China; [email protected] (H.Z.); [email protected] (C.F.); [email protected] (J.Z.); [email protected] (X.Y.) 2 National Engineering Research Center for Breeding Swine Industry, Guangzhou 510642, China 3 Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Guangzhou 510642, China * Correspondence: [email protected] Simple Summary: Informatization can effectively improve the production and management effi- ciency in the poultry farming process. In this study, a management system was designed to realize the acquisition, transmission, storage, and management of information, and upload the data to the cloud database to increase the flexibility and scalability of the system. On the basis of realizing production management functions, the system also incorporates an office management module, thus forming a complete data chain in production activities, so as to conduct farming data mining and accurate traceability in the next stage of the work. In particular, the system also adds poultry disease detection module supports to achieve the purpose of healthy farming. The research provides an information management plan for the intensive poultry farming model, and the designed management system may be the starting point of a future intelligent poultry farming management system based on cloud services and big data technology. Abstract: Aiming at breaking down the bottleneck problems of different scale of poultry farms, the low profitability of poultry farming, and backward information management in China, a safe and efficient information management system for poultry farming was designed. This system consists of (1) a management system application layer, (2) a data service layer, and (3) an information sensing layer. The information sensing layer obtains and uploads production and farming information through the wireless sensor network built in the poultry house. The use of a cloud database as an information storage carrier in the data service layer eliminates the complex status of deploying local server clusters, and it improves the flexibility and scalability of the system. The management system application layer contains many sub-function modules including poultry disease detection functions to realize the visual management of farming information and health farming; each module operates independently and cooperates with each other to form a set of information management system for poultry farming with wide functional coverage, high service efficiency, safety, and convenience. The system prototype has been tested for the performance of wireless sensor network and cloud database, and the results show that the prototype is capable of acquiring and managing poultry farming information. Keywords: poultry farming; information management; cloud database; disease detection 1. Introduction Modern poultry farming companies need a complete management system to assist companies in managing their daily production activities. The system should cover such things as personnel office management, purchase–sales–inventory management, environ- mental monitoring and control in poultry houses, and monitoring of individual poultry information. At the same time, it also needs to include traceability management of products, diagnosis, and early warning of poultry diseases to meet the need for future development. Animals 2021, 11, 900. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11030900 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/animals https://www.mdpi.com/journal/animals https://www.mdpi.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3383-1877 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9240-8756 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9393-0829 https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11030900 https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11030900 https://creativecommons.org/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11030900 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/animals https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/ani11030900?type=check_update&version=2 Animals 2021, 11, 900 2 of 15 With the development of large-scale and intensive poultry farming, more intelligent and automated technologies and methods have been applied in poultry farming [1,2], such as radio frequency identification technology [3], Internet of Things technology (IoT), and cloud technology [4]. At the same time, there are methods such as poultry disease detection, poultry diet monitoring [5], environmental monitoring in poultry houses [6,7], product tracking and traceability, and abnormal detection in poultry houses to achieve precision farming. Yu Ligen et al. developed a network-based data acquisition system using LabVIEW software for environmental monitoring in poultry management [8], which describes the construction of data acquisition system hardware and the process of data acquisition. The method also provides a reference for us to build an environmental moni- toring module. British Irvine explored the British broiler meat value chain [9] and provided a method for constructing the traceability module in the poultry farming management system through its in-depth analysis of the value chain. Research on applying wireless sensing systems along with mobile networking and cloud platform to some agricultural systems in crops [10] has provided us with new ideas to develop a similar information system for poultry farming. In recent years, more and more researchers have devoted themselves to the study of precision poultry farming [11,12]. Some researchers help farmers control and monitor the health status of poultry through IOT, imagery analytics, and other technologies [13]. Other researchers build online platforms and using smart sensors to record and manage production information in real time [14–16]. Although wireless sensing and cloud platform techniques are well advanced, there is no complete system that covers all of the functions to meet needs for poultry farming management. The technical difficulties include the unified construction of the system, the reasonable division of functional modules, the good mutual cooperation between modules, the interaction of software and hardware, and the intelligentization of the system. This paper reports the conceptual design of a poultry farming information man- agement system with a cloud database as the core hub, through the connection of the underlying hardware facilities in the poultry house and the upper management system and the cloud database to manage the daily office work and production management tasks of poultry farming enterprises. In addition, this cloud-based management system also pays more attention to the storage and management of data information by separating the database system from the software system. The ultimate goal of the poultry farming information management system is to expand the development of the poultry industry management system with big data analysis capability. 2. Overall System Architecture Figure 1 shows the overall structure of the system. The system is divided into three layers, which are the upper management system, the intermediate data service layer (also known as the middle layer), and the underlying layer (also known as the bottom layer, including hardware facilities in the poultry house). The upper layer is a software management system that provides a good visual inter- face. The management system is divided into an office automation module, a production management module, an expert system, and a traceability module. As for the middle layer, the cloud database is used to store the data and information generated by the upper layer and the bottom layer, and at the same time construct a reasonable network environment to solve mutual communication problems by configuring the underlying server. At the bottom layer, in poultry house(s), environmental sensors, Wi-Fi receiving and transmitting devices, and single-chip microcomputers can be configured to timely acquire and transmit environmental information and poultry individual information (including poultry weight information, feed intake data information, drinking water data information, poultry egg quality information, etc.). Ventilation fans, evaporative cooling pads, heaters, and other equipment placed in the poultry house to regulate environmental parameters such as temperature and humidity in the house. Animals 2021, 11, 900 3 of 15 Animals 2021, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 3 of 16 Figure 1. Overall structure of the system. The upper layer is a software management system that provides a good visual in- terface. The management system is divided into an office automation module, a produc- tion management module, an expert system, and a traceability module. As for the middle layer, the cloud database is used to store the data and information generated by the up- per layer and the bottom layer, and at the same time construct a reasonable network en- vironment to solve mutual communication problems by configuring the underlying server. At the bottom layer, in poultry house(s), environmental sensors, Wi-Fi receiving and transmitting devices, and single-chip microcomputers can be configured to timely acquire and transmit environmental information and poultry individual information (including poultry weight information, feed intake data information, drinking water data information, poultry egg quality information, etc.). Ventilation fans, evaporative cooling pads, heaters, and other equipment placed in the poultry house to regulate environ- mental parameters such as temperature and humidity in the house. 2.1. System Network Construction and Transmission Method An environmental parameter information sensor (including temperature and hu- midity sensor, ammonia sensor, carbon dioxide sensor, hydrogen sulfide sensor, light intensity sensor, etc.), feed intake data monitoring module, drinking water data moni- toring module, video monitoring system, fans, evaporative cooling pads, heaters, feed- ing, and manure cleaning facilities in the poultry house together form the local area network system in the house. This section mainly reports the information transmission methods, local transmission strategies, and configuration of network nodes in poultry houses. Data transmission between the poultry house and the house environmental control system is primarily provided by a suitable wired communication system, such as a fieldbus. There are some disadvantages (e.g., configure too many network endpoints, device address assignment rules, and other issues) of using a full wireless system. Therefore, the local area network in the house uses a wireless/wireline hybrid construc- tion [17]. As shown in Table 1, among the three commonly used wireless transmission modes (i.e., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and ZigBee), the Wi-Fi technology has the longest trans- mission distance and the fastest transmission speed [18]; therefore, Wi-Fi technology was selected as the wireless transmission method in the poultry house selects. Figure 1. Overall structure of the system. 2.1. System Network Construction and Transmission Method An environmental parameter information sensor (including temperature and hu- midity sensor, ammonia sensor, carbon dioxide sensor, hydrogen sulfide sensor, light intensity sensor, etc.), feed intake data monitoring module, drinking water data monitoring module, video monitoring system, fans, evaporative cooling pads, heaters, feeding, and manure cleaning facilities in the poultry house together form the local area network system in the house. This section mainly reports the information transmission methods, local transmission strategies, and configuration of network nodes in poultry houses. Data transmission between the poultry house and the house environmental control system is primarily provided by a suitable wired communication system, such as a fieldbus. There are some disadvantages (e.g., configure too many network endpoints, device address assignment rules, and other issues) of using a full wireless system. Therefore, the local area network in the house uses a wireless/wireline hybrid construction [17]. As shown in Table 1, among the three commonly used wireless transmission modes (i.e., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and ZigBee), the Wi-Fi technology has the longest transmission distance and the fastest transmission speed [18]; therefore, Wi-Fi technology was selected as the wireless transmission method in the poultry house selects. Table 1. Comparison of three commonly wireless transmission methods (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ZigBee) within four parameters (frequency band, transmission distance, power dissipation, transmission rate). Transmission Modes Frequency Band Transmission Distance Power Dissipation Transmission Rate Bluetooth 2.4 GHz 2–30 m 20 mA 1 Mbps Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz 100–300 m 10–50 mA 600 Mbps ZigBee 2.4 GHz 50–300 m 5 mA 100 Kbps 2.2. Cloud Database The Alibaba Cloud Database RDS service was used in the system, as it has a good visual operation interface and numerous auxiliary analysis tools. It can generate database- related files such as E-R diagrams (Entity Relationship Diagram) and data dictionary with one click, and it can also generate test data to ensure the test works during database devel- opment. The database uses a relational database, and the database version is MySQL5.7. As the core hub of a poultry farming information management system, the cloud database Animals 2021, 11, 900 4 of 15 should carry out requirements analysis, concept design, logical structure design, construc- tion of the E-R model, design table structure, and primary-foreign key relationships in the process of design and construction. The intranet address of the system can be accessed by the Alibaba Cloud Server, which has the advantages of fast reading speed and convenient setup. The external network address can be accessed by Internet users with access rights, and the database can be read and written. In the design stage, the selected database memory is 1024 MB, 1 core CPU, the storage capacity is 20 GB, and the maximum number of connections is 2000. It is confirmed in the actual development test that this configuration can meet the development needs. 2.3. Upper Management System The management system uses the C++ language as the main development tool, the latest Qt5 framework as an open source support library, and the Qt Creator as an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for compilation and development. Figure 2 shows the functional framework of the poultry farming management system. The whole system is divided into four functional modules. The production management module mainly realizes the monitoring of environmental parameters in the poultry house, the monitoring of the growth information of individual poultry, and the management of the production operations in the poultry house. The office management module mainly fulfills the business tasks such as personnel management, financial management, and invoicing. The expert system module combines artificial intelligent technology such as data mining and machine learning to (1) realize egg shape index analysis; (2) provide feeding standards, breeding recommendations, mortality analysis, and other functions, and (3) realize poultry disease diagnosis and an early warning system based on audio and image analysis of poultry. Modules are functionally independent, with data-sharing capability. Animals 2021, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 5 of 16 Figure 2. Functional framework of poultry farming information management system. 3. Wireless Sensor Network Design The bottom layer of the system is mainly composed of wireless sensor networks, which are used to manage terminal nodes and the uploaded data information. The composition of the wireless sensor network in the poultry house is shown in Figure 3. Each terminal node uses AT commands to automatically search for the wireless network by name and join it. After joining the network, it can independently obtain the device IP address and server IP address. Open the transparent transmission mode through the AT command, and use the UDP transmission protocol to transmit the data information. At the same time, in order to summarize and forward the data information uploaded by each terminal node, a data server should also be configured in the wireless sensor network in the poultry house. Figure 3. The composition of the wireless sensor network in the poultry house. The wireless sensor network and various types of intelligent equipment can solve the problem of obtaining and transmitting various kinds of rearing information (e.g., environmental information, poultry weight information, poultry dietary information). This section mainly takes environmental information as an example to introduce the im- Figure 2. Functional framework of poultry farming information management system. 3. Wireless Sensor Network Design The bottom layer of the system is mainly composed of wireless sensor networks, which are used to manage terminal nodes and the uploaded data information. The composition of the wireless sensor network in the poultry house is shown in Figure 3. Each terminal node uses AT commands to automatically search for the wireless network by name and join it. After joining the network, it can independently obtain the Animals 2021, 11, 900 5 of 15 device IP address and server IP address. Open the transparent transmission mode through the AT command, and use the UDP transmission protocol to transmit the data information. At the same time, in order to summarize and forward the data information uploaded by each terminal node, a data server should also be configured in the wireless sensor network in the poultry house. Animals 2021, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 5 of 16 Figure 2. Functional framework of poultry farming information management system. 3. Wireless Sensor Network Design The bottom layer of the system is mainly composed of wireless sensor networks, which are used to manage terminal nodes and the uploaded data information. The composition of the wireless sensor network in the poultry house is shown in Figure 3. Each terminal node uses AT commands to automatically search for the wireless network by name and join it. After joining the network, it can independently obtain the device IP address and server IP address. Open the transparent transmission mode through the AT command, and use the UDP transmission protocol to transmit the data information. At the same time, in order to summarize and forward the data information uploaded by each terminal node, a data server should also be configured in the wireless sensor network in the poultry house. Figure 3. The composition of the wireless sensor network in the poultry house. The wireless sensor network and various types of intelligent equipment can solve the problem of obtaining and transmitting various kinds of rearing information (e.g., environmental information, poultry weight information, poultry dietary information). This section mainly takes environmental information as an example to introduce the im- Figure 3. The composition of the wireless sensor network in the poultry house. The wireless sensor network and various types of intelligent equipment can solve the problem of obtaining and transmitting various kinds of rearing information (e.g., environmental information, poultry weight information, poultry dietary information). This section mainly takes environmental information as an example to introduce the implementation process of information acquisition and upload. In the example, four environmental information sensing units are deployed in the wireless sensor network. 3.1. Poultry House Server A data server should be configured in the wireless sensor network in the poultry house to process and forward the data information obtained by the terminal nodes in the network. Therefore, the server in the poultry house should choose a controller that has a processor, operating system, wireless network card, and can store programs. Considering the harsh working environment in the poultry house, this research selected the Industrial Personal Computer (IPC) with stronger waterproof, dustproof, and anti-interference capabilities than the data server. In addition to the attributes and characteristics of ordinary computers, it also has stronger anti-interference ability and long-term uninterrupted working ability, which are suitable for use in the context of poultry farming environment. This research work selects an industrial control computer as the server in the poultry house to process and upload the data generated by the terminal node of the wireless sensor network, and the performance parameters are shown in Table 2. Table 2. Industrial control computer performance parameters. Device Parameter Manufacturer CPU Intel Core i5-7440HQ @ 2.80 GHz Intel RAM 8 GB (DDR4 2666 MHz) SAMSUNG Operating system Windows 10 Professional 64-bit Microsoft Hard disk NT-128 (128 GB/SSD) Kingspec Network card 43224AG 802.11 n Wi-Fi Adapter Broadcom Corporation In order to realize the processing and uploading of the data information generated by the terminal node, and at the same time realize the management and control of the wireless Animals 2021, 11, 900 6 of 15 sensor network in the poultry house, a set of server programs is designed and loaded on the server in the poultry house to achieve the above-mentioned purpose. 3.2. Environmental Information Sensing Unit (EISU) As the terminal node of the wireless sensor network, the environmental information sensing unit (EISU) in the poultry house should contain various digital environmental sensors, such as temperature and humidity sensors, carbon dioxide concentration sensors, hydrogen sulfide concentration sensors, light intensity sensors, wind speed sensors, etc., and it should also be equipped with a micro processor and wireless transmission module. The structure diagram is shown in Figure 4, and the performance parameters of the environmental sensors used are shown in Table 3, which are provided by the manufacturer. Animals 2021, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 16 plementation process of information acquisition and upload. In the example, four envi- ronmental information sensing units are deployed in the wireless sensor network. 3.1. Poultry House Server A data server should be configured in the wireless sensor network in the poultry house to process and forward the data information obtained by the terminal nodes in the network. Therefore, the server in the poultry house should choose a controller that has a processor, operating system, wireless network card, and can store programs. Considering the harsh working environment in the poultry house, this research selected the Industrial Personal Computer (IPC) with stronger waterproof, dustproof, and anti-interference ca- pabilities than the data server. In addition to the attributes and characteristics of ordinary computers, it also has stronger anti-interference ability and long-term uninterrupted working ability, which are suitable for use in the context of poultry farming environment. This research work selects an industrial control computer as the server in the poultry house to process and upload the data generated by the terminal node of the wireless sensor network, and the perfor- mance parameters are shown in Table 2. Table 2. Industrial control computer performance parameters. Device Parameter Manufacturer CPU Intel Core i5-7440HQ @ 2.80 GHz Intel RAM 8 GB (DDR4 2666 MHz) SAMSUNG Operating system Windows 10 Professional 64-bit Microsoft Hard disk NT-128 (128 GB/SSD) Kingspec Network card 43224AG 802.11 n Wi-Fi Adapter Broadcom Corporation In order to realize the processing and uploading of the data information generated by the terminal node, and at the same time realize the management and control of the wireless sensor network in the poultry house, a set of server programs is designed and loaded on the server in the poultry house to achieve the above-mentioned purpose. 3.2. Environmental Information Sensing Unit (EISU) As the terminal node of the wireless sensor network, the environmental information sensing unit (EISU) in the poultry house should contain various digital environmental sensors, such as temperature and humidity sensors, carbon dioxide concentration sen- sors, hydrogen sulfide concentration sensors, light intensity sensors, wind speed sensors, etc., and it should also be equipped with a micro processor and wireless transmission module. The structure diagram is shown in Figure 4, and the performance parameters of the environmental sensors used are shown in Table 3, which are provided by the manu- facturer. Figure 4. The structure diagram of the environmental information sensing unit structure. Figure 4. The structure diagram of the environmental information sensing unit structure. Table 3. The environmental sensors performance parameters. Type Range Resolution Accuracy Model Temperature/◦C −40~125 0.01 ±0.3 ◦C SHT20Relative humidity/% 0~100 0.01 ±3% Light intensity/lx 0~65,535 0.01 ±20% BH1750FVI H2S concentration/ppm 1~200 0.1 ±3% MQ-136 Various environmental sensors are used to sense and measure the parameter val- ues of the surrounding environment and using the I2C protocol to transmit them to the microcontroller through the data bus. The microcontroller is responsible for packaging the environmental data information according to the data packet format in Table 4 and uploading it to the poultry house server through the wireless transmission module; the diagram of the data flow is shown in Figure 5. Finally, the poultry house server uploads the data to the cloud database. Animals 2021, 11, 900 7 of 15 Table 4. Environmental information packet format. Number Identifier Data (Hex) Size (Byte) Description 1 EI 45 49 2 Packet header 2 PL - 4 Packet length 3 UN 55 4E 2 EISU number 4 TS 54 53 2 Temperature data start flag 5 TD - 4 Temperature data 6 TE 54 45 2 Temperature data end flag 7 HS 48 53 2 Humidity data start flag 8 HD - 4 Humidity data 9 HE 48 45 2 Humidity data end flag 10 BS 42 53 2 Light intensity data start flag 11 BD - 4 Light intensity data 12 BE 42 45 2 Light intensity data end flag 13 SS 53 53 2 H2S concentration data start flag 14 SD - 4 H2S concentration data 15 SE 53 45 2 H2S concentration data end flag 16 CRC - 4 Check code 17 EOP FF 45 2 End of packet flag Animals 2021, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 7 of 16 Table 3. The environmental sensors performance parameters. Type Range Resolution Accuracy Model Temperature/°C −40~125 0.01 ±0.3 °C SHT20 Relative humidity/% 0~100 0.01 ±3% Light intensity/lx 0~65,535 0.01 ±20% BH1750FVI H2S concentration/ppm 1~200 0.1 ±3% MQ-136 Various environmental sensors are used to sense and measure the parameter values of the surrounding environment and using the I2C protocol to transmit them to the mi- crocontroller through the data bus. The microcontroller is responsible for packaging the environmental data information according to the data packet format in Table 4 and up- loading it to the poultry house server through the wireless transmission module; the di- agram of the data flow is shown in Figure 5. Finally, the poultry house server uploads the data to the cloud database. Table 4. Environmental information packet format. Number Identifier Data (Hex) Size (Byte) Description 1 EI 45 49 2 Packet header 2 PL - 4 Packet length 3 UN 55 4E 2 EISU number 4 TS 54 53 2 Temperature data start flag 5 TD - 4 Temperature data 6 TE 54 45 2 Temperature data end flag 7 HS 48 53 2 Humidity data start flag 8 HD - 4 Humidity data 9 HE 48 45 2 Humidity data end flag 10 BS 42 53 2 Light intensity data start flag 11 BD - 4 Light intensity data 12 BE 42 45 2 Light intensity data end flag 13 SS 53 53 2 H2S concentration data start flag 14 SD - 4 H2S concentration data 15 SE 53 45 2 H2S concentration data end flag 16 CRC - 4 Check code 17 EOP FF 45 2 End of packet flag Figure 5. Flow chart of multi-threaded processing environment information data program. Figure 5. Flow chart of multi-threaded processing environment information data program. 3.3. Data Collection and Transmission During the data transmission process of the wireless sensor network in the poultry house, there is no need to establish a one-to-one connection, only a one-to-many connection is needed to …