An autonomous bird monitoring and food intake recording feeder system towards effective rehabilitation

Rehabilitation for avians is generally examined by veterinary doctors and till date not much technological intervention is attempted to address recovery phase of birds in group. Different breed of birds are usually aggregated at a confined place and nurtured for recovery. However, in a group, the growth of birds is usually dominated by the stronger and larger sized avians, thereby making the other birds vulnerable even to the extent of succumbing to death due to continuous lack of food. Hence a continuous monitoring of individual birds around the feeder system is necessary and if needed additional attention is recommended to specific birds who are on the verge of food lapses. The existing high cost video surveillance system has capability to detect birds via markers, but requires additional sensory information or high focus camera to calibrate food intake. The proposed system design demonstrates selective monitoring of birds and approximately quantifies the food intake by the individuals in a group of the rehabilitation. The robust and low cost feeder design includes customized array of coils forming RFID system to identify and localize birds within the feeder system, and array of weight sensors interfaced to microcontroller to estimate the food intake. The weight sensors are optimally placed in the feeder system to extract the food consumed by the avian. The microcontroller is further connected to microprocessor to transfer the food intake data and the information of the identified birds that visited the feeder system for further offline processing. The designed feeder system was deployed in Avian and Reptile Rehabilitation Center, and experimental results showcased promising results in identification of birds and food intake records.