UK-China Agritech Challenge: Envirobot An autonomous roving platform for environment, health and welfare monitoring of poultry The poultry industry in China is modernising at a fast pace, but in the process is encountering significant problems with controlling temperature and other key parameters within their production facilities. The technologies currently used in facilities in China (and often elsewhere) do not enable effective monitoring and thus optimisation of temperature control or any other relevant environmental factors.  Lack of optimal housing conditions is not only a bird health and welfare issue, but also a source of very significant cost to the Chinese poultry in terms of lost productivity.  Rearing chickens in sub-optimal conditions means that weight for weight, such birds require more feed than if provided with a more optimal environment.  Even a very small reduction in feed can have a significant positive effect on productivity.  Better conditions will also reduce the risk of disease and mortality to the birds.  A significant opportunity therefore exists for UK based organisations, with expertise in this field, to collaborate with Chinese partners to develop an appropriate solution, which will in particular effect an increase in productivity within the poultry sector in China.  Furthermore, it will also be a step forward in addressing the currently poor reputation of the poultry industry in China. The solution developed will have applicability in other countries around the world and may also have a use in other livestock industries.  Therefore, it is an example of an excellent export opportunity for both the UK and China.    Currently poultry facilities worldwide are constructed with a few wired sensors giving a basic temperature profile in the poultry house. What is proposed is for an autonomous robot to move around the facility capturing data continuously as it moves around and sampling the environment at various heights within the facility, from the lowest cage to the highest cage. Due to the navigation knowledge of the robot it will be able to plot the data giving a 3 dimensional view of all the parameters that the birds are exposed to, to include temperature, humidity, air velocity, CO2 and will also have an on-board camera to allow visual assessment of the conditions and potentially the birds.   In addition the development of a sensor system which is based on a current prototype "e-nose" will allow data regarding the presence of disease to be captured for the first time. Combining all the data gathered will allow assessments to be carried out that not only detects diseases before symptoms are seen in the birds, but by cross referencing all the environmental data will allow for predictive modelling to occur and potentially for the first time allow the Chinese poultry farmer to prevent sickness in their birds, improving bird welfare, bird performance and go some way to re-building consumer confidence in the product. One key partner in the business case for this project is Applied Poultry in the UK, which already analyse data from global poultry businesses and turning it into better knowledge and information. Once the project is completed the aim is for collaboration to continue with some data analysis being conducted by Applied Poultry. Robotics support will come from Ross Robotics.  The Chinese farmers will have a dashboard for live real time analysis of their facilities and some knowledge sharing will allow the academic partners (UK and/or China) to remain involved and gaining future information from such a project. As this proposal is for monitoring birds in cages we can see no reason why the developed robots/sensors/dashboard/data analysis cannot be considered appropriate for caged laying hens globally, although a different disease sensor arrays may be required The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.