Design and Development of a Non-Contact Thermography Device for Equine Research

Faruk Yildiz; Haley Claire Collins; Jessica L. Leatherwood; Marcy Miller Beverly; Mark J. Anderson

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Conference: 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Publication Date: June 26, 2016
Start Date: June 26, 2016
End Date: June 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-68565-5
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Capstone and Design Projects
Tagged Division: Engineering Technology
Page Count: 14
DOI: 10.18260/p.26661
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/26661
Download Count: 3260

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Paper Authors

biography

Faruk Yildiz Sam Houston State University

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Faruk Yildiz is currently an Associate Professor of
Engineering Technology at Sam Houston State University.
His primary teaching areas are in Electronics,
Computer Aided Design (CAD), and Alternative Energy Systems. Research interests include: low power energy
harvesting systems, renewable energy technologies
and education.

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Dr. Marcy Beverly is currently a Professor in Animal Science in the Department of Agricultural Sciences and Engineering Technology at Sam Houston State University (SHSU). She holds B.S. in Agricultural Economics and Ph.D. in Animal Science from Texas A&M University and M.S. in Agricultural Business from Sam Houston State University. Marcy was raised in Huntsville, Texas and her passion for agriculture was sparked through father at a young age. Growing up in the 4H realms, she has maintained her participation through serving as superintendent for a state livestock show and county committees. Marcy serves as the advisor to the Block & Bridle Club and coordinates many of the community service efforts for the department. For the past 15 years at SHSU, she has focused her efforts in teaching, scholarly and service not only for the university and professional avenues but for the community.

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biography

Mark J. Anderson Sam Houston State University

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Mark J. Anderson is and Animal Science professor at Sam Houston State University whose research focuses on how alterations to the management and breeding of live animals will affect the biology of muscle and meat tissue.

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Abstract

Equine events such as racing, rodeos, fairs, breed association sanctioned shows, result in the congregation of animals, and are at high risk for the spread of disease among participating horses. This risk can be lowered through an effective biosecurity program. An important part of a biosecurity program is to have a rapid method in order to obtain reliable body temperature measurements due to the fact that changes in body temperature are often a vital indicator of infectious animal disease. Fever refers to a consistent rise in body temperature that is more than a normal range (99.5 to 101.0°F) and is one of the most commonly recorded clinical parameters in the physical examination of the horse. Measuring body temperature in animals includes the use of rectal thermometers and thermal microchips. These temperature measurement methods have different limitations such as intolerance to the procedure, time required to obtain the measurements, or the need to have a microchip implanted in each animal and a portable scanner that can read the microchip.

Traditional clinical or serological examination of large numbers of livestock is logistically and economically challenging, and visual observations alone are not the most sensitive indicators of detecting early disease. A potential method for measuring temperature that does not have these limitations is noncontact infrared thermography because it is passive, rapid in the hands of trained personnel, and noninvasive. The use of infrared thermography as a non-invasive method for fever and stress detection in animals holds great promise, however, limitations to the use of infrared thermography includes both the availability and cost of the equine devices to the consumer. In addition, as previous literature would suggest improvement in baseline and controlled studies with the ability to determine infrared repeatability and accuracy of infrared thermography. In humans, noncontact infrared thermometers are available for taking body temperatures, modifying these instruments for equine applications would be beneficial to the usability, application, and efficacy for the equine industry.

For the project, a team of students (Engineering Technology (ET) - Electronic, Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET), Industrial Design and Development, Animal Science) and faculty were challenged to design and develop a low-cost non-contact infrared thermography device. An electronics major and electronics and computer engineering technology student designed and built the circuit after investigating existing similar products in the market. For the circuit design, simulation, prototyping, and programming, National Instruments MultiSim, Arduino, and ExpressPCB software packages were be used. For the product enclosure/housing, a student majoring in design and development used a 3D design and development software Autodesk Inventor. A 3D printer was available for the students use for the prototyping. The application reports the equine issues to the user based on the temperature readings. The application will automatically generate reports when the temperature readings are downloaded to any external device. All design, developmental phases and collaboration among students of diverse majors will be detailed in the paper.

Citation
Format

Yildiz, F., & Collins, H. C., & Leatherwood, J. L., & Beverly, M. M., & Anderson, M. J. (2016, June), Design and Development of a Non-Contact Thermography Device for Equine Research Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26661

TY - CPAPER
AB - Equine events such as racing, rodeos, fairs, breed association sanctioned shows, result in the congregation of animals, and are at high risk for the spread of disease among participating horses. This risk can be lowered through an effective biosecurity program. An important part of a biosecurity program is to have a rapid method in order to obtain reliable body temperature measurements due to the fact that changes in body temperature are often a vital indicator of infectious animal disease. Fever refers to a consistent rise in body temperature that is more than a normal range (99.5 to 101.0°F) and is one of the most commonly recorded clinical parameters in the physical examination of the horse. Measuring body temperature in animals includes the use of rectal thermometers and thermal microchips. These temperature measurement methods have different limitations such as intolerance to the procedure, time required to obtain the measurements, or the need to have a microchip implanted in each animal and a portable scanner that can read the microchip.

Traditional clinical or serological examination of large numbers of livestock is logistically and economically challenging, and visual observations alone are not the most sensitive indicators of detecting early disease. A potential method for measuring temperature that does not have these limitations is noncontact infrared thermography because it is passive, rapid in the hands of trained personnel, and noninvasive. The use of infrared thermography as a non-invasive method for fever and stress detection in animals holds great promise, however, limitations to the use of infrared thermography includes both the availability and cost of the equine devices to the consumer. In addition, as previous literature would suggest improvement in baseline and controlled studies with the ability to determine infrared repeatability and accuracy of infrared thermography. In humans, noncontact infrared thermometers are available for taking body temperatures, modifying these instruments for equine applications would be beneficial to the usability, application, and efficacy for the equine industry.

For the project, a team of students (Engineering Technology (ET) - Electronic, Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET), Industrial Design and Development, Animal Science) and faculty were challenged to design and develop a low-cost non-contact infrared thermography device. An electronics major and electronics and computer engineering technology student designed and built the circuit after investigating existing similar products in the market. For the circuit design, simulation, prototyping, and programming, National Instruments MultiSim, Arduino, and ExpressPCB software packages were be used. For the product enclosure/housing, a student majoring in design and development used a 3D design and development software Autodesk Inventor. A 3D printer was available for the students use for the prototyping. The application reports the equine issues to the user based on the temperature readings. The application will automatically generate reports when the temperature readings are downloaded to any external device. All design, developmental phases and collaboration among students of diverse majors will be detailed in the paper.
AU - Faruk Yildiz
AU - Haley Claire Collins
AU - Jessica L. Leatherwood
AU - Marcy Miller Beverly
AU - Mark J. Anderson
CY - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA - 2016/06/26
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Design and Development of a Non-Contact Thermography Device for Equine Research
UR - https://peer.asee.org/26661
DO - 10.18260/p.26661
ER -