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Monitoring of the small animal cage environment at the bioterium
Author(s) -
Cabeças José Ricardo,
Farinha Rodrigo,
Cabrita António Silvério
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.26.1_supplement.lb506
Subject(s) - cage , microprocessor , animal welfare , computer science , humidity , embedded system , engineering , ecology , physics , structural engineering , biology , thermodynamics
Monitorization of small animal's cages environmental variables is a major concern in animal experimentation. The access to variables such as the temperature and humidity of the cage allows greater control over animal welfare during an experimentation and can help improve the environmental conditions. The purpose of this work is to create a means for controlling the environment in the animal's cage, using temperature, humidity and gas sensors connected to a microprocessor. The microprocessor will connect to a server where the data will be stored. Using an array of sensors in each cage one can monitor the environment inside the cage individually, managing the information from each sensor, processing that information and triggering events that will help the researcher throughout the experiments. With this project we want to create a system that can help the researcher monitor the animals without having to be physically present. This system will gather all the information in a server which will have limited access. With the implementation of this system we expect to optimize the time and the resources spent in the maintenance of the small animal's cage, while getting real‐time information about the environment of each cage.