Objective  A goose incubator monitoring system based on programmable logic controller (PLC) and cloud platform was designed in order to improve the incubation performance of goose eggs, and to solve the problems of low automation, large temperature fluctuations, poor temperature robustness, and complex on-site operations in the incubation process of the existing goose incubator.

Method  Based on the technological requirements in the incubation process of goose eggs and the working principle of the goose incubator, PLC was used as the main controller to design the hardware circuit and software program of the system which could realize the automatic control of temperature, humidity, turning eggs and water spraying of the incubator. The human-machine interaction interface for on-site monitoring of the incubator was designed with a touch screen and the configuration software. Moreover, the remote monitoring system was designed with general packet radio service (GPRS) smart gateway, cloud platform server and mobile terminal. When the system was working, the GPRS smart gateway read the memory data in the PLC and uploaded the data to the cloud platform server through the 4G/5G network. The mobile terminal could directly access and download the data in the cloud platform server, and the data were presented as a chart on the WeChat official account, APP or webpage.

Result  The monitoring system was stable and in good condition. The temperature sampling data were highly robust and 100% met the control requirements in the incubation process. The automatic control helped to improve the automation level of the goose hatching machine. In the hatching production test, the average hatching rate of fertilized goose eggs was 87.84%, which was 1.44% higher than the current highest record.

Conclusion  The system can meet the hatching requirements of goose eggs, and has high control accuracy. It achieves the automatic control, on-site monitoring and remote monitoring of the goose incubator and has a good human-machine interaction interface. It has guiding significance for promoting the development of agricultural equipment automation and informatization.