StaldTek – The Pigpens of the Future

Project start January 2009. Expected completion January 2013.

The innovation consortium, StaldTek, will introduce new types of enclosures, where productivity, environmental impact, work environment and animal welfare are optimised. These are pens where buildings, inventory and equipment, as well as the interaction between people and animals, are based on integration of advanced and cognitively aimed sensor technologies and robotics.   

The new types of enclosures include innovative concepts, design and ways of interacting, which are intended to solve problems related to climate and animal welfare. The new approaches will utilise the possibilities for automation of burdening or costly tasks inherent in sensor technology and robotics. In a departure from current thinking, StaldTek is opening up for innovation within each specific subsystem, but particularly the overall system. 

Project Objectives
Staldtek will, via concrete projects, explore alternative concepts of design of buildings, inventory and equipment, where automation, sensors and robotics are part of the entire innovation process.

The Consortium is planning several subprojects, all within the three main themes:

• Automation of work environment impacting and care-demanding tasks.
• Modeling of air streams and emission of gasses from surfaces with slurry in pigpens.
• Biological management models for surveillance, stimulation and keeping of swine in the enclosures.

Participants

• Agro Products A/S
• Danish Farm Design A/S
• Dansk Svineproduktion
• University of Southern Denmark
• EGATEC A/S
• EURISCO ApS
• NOVOTEK PLANNING SYSTEMS A/S
• Samson Agro A/S, Skiold A/S
• RoboCluster
• Aarhus University
• Ørsted•DTU
• The Danish Technological  Institute’s Centre for Robot Technology