Incubator controls developed on worldwide basis

Engineers at Chickmaster are working closely with specialists from Omron Electronics to constantly develop and improve the control system for the company's incubators

Chickmaster incubators are designed to get up to 190,000 eggs to hatch to order, a task requiring a control system to monitor every egg, every hour of every day for three weeks.

Engineers at Chickmaster in Somerset work closely with specialists from Omron Electronics to constantly develop and improve their control system.

This relationship is replicated at Chickmaster's other manufacturing sites in America and France, with Omron's global presence supporting end users in terms of maintenance, repairs and modifications.

The control system is based on Omron's CQM1 industrial programmable logic controller (PLC), which uses mixed analogue and digital I/O to monitor temperature, humidity, ventilation and other parameters such as carbon dioxide levels.

The CQM1 has been designed to provide high value-added machine control with a full complement of functions in a compact PLC.

Its expandability through special I/O cards and its ease of upgradeability allows machine control systems to be easily modified and enhanced over time, facilitating a philosophy of continuous improvement.

The range has recently been expanded with the launch of the new CQM1H processors, which provide enhanced communications, double the I/O capacity, and greatly increased user and data memory, all of which Chickmaster is eager to embrace with its new flagship Millennium incubators.

Fertilised eggs are placed on trays, each held securely in place by 12 tabs.

The trays are loaded onto trolleys, and the trolleys are grouped into sixes, with each group having its own environmental control system.

These control systems can be networked to communicate with a central computer system that runs and monitors all the incubators within the hatchery, which may well be producing as many as ten million chicks per week.

One technology that Chickmaster and Omron have increasingly brought into play in recent years is modem remote diagnostics.

This allows, for instance, hatchery managers to monitor each section of each incubator from a central location, a task that would previously required a significant deployment of skilled personnel.

Another use for modem technology is to give Omron engineers instant access to the control system, even when they are far from site, so if a problem arises an expert can assess the situation within minutes.

It takes 21 days for a chick to develop and hatch, and throughout this time the Chickmaster incubators create the ideal environment for the eggs.

For instance the ambient temperature is held at the optimum level (around 37.4 degrees C depending on the setting system employed) for the developing embryo to an accuracy of 0.1 per cent.

Initially the eggs are cold and require heating, but as the embryos develops they start to generate heat and the CQM with its Omron PC 102 temperature probe has to detect this change and switch over from a heating to a cooling regime.

Similarly, humidity and air-flow are also carefully controlled.

In an interesting development, when using the "all-in all-out" single-stage production a control system was dedicated to ventilating away the carbon dioxide generated by the eggs.

But more recently it has been discovered that if the eggs bathe in their own CO2 for the first ten days, the chicks hatch stronger and fitter.

Another change that Chickmaster has developed is the replacement of relatively delicate touchscreen controllers with palmtops that talk to the control system by infrared link.

The big advantage is that the palmtops are removed from the hot and humid hatchery when not in use.

One of the PLC's key functions is to monitor the hourly turning of every egg through 90 degrees.

This function is performed with an electric actuator, and it is so critical to the development of the embryo chick that the PLC activates an alarm to identify any egg that has not turned correctly.

Omron has been working with Chickmaster for seven years, during which time it has assisted with many developments and enhancements to the control system.

Similarly it has also worked with Chickmaster's other manufacturing sites in America and France, and its many customers, who are spread literally around the world.

For the end users Omron is always on call and ready to turn out no matter where or when so that thousands of valuable chicks hatch out healthy and strong.

This year Omron has been introducing Chickmaster to the additional capabilities of the new CQM1-H PLC, which will allow developments to continue for many more years.

Similarly, Omron keeps Chickmaster informed of its continuous software advances and other developments in its extensive range of control products, so that systems - whether in design or in the field - can be reassessed and upgraded as necessary.

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