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Title: DEVELOPMENT OF RUGGED ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING UNITS FOR TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY

Author
item Eigenberg, Roger
item Nienaber, John
item Brown-Brandl, Tami
item Hahn, George

Submitted to: Applied Engineering in Agriculture
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/5/2002
Publication Date: 7/20/2002
Citation: EIGENBERG, R.A., NIENABER, J.A., BROWN BRANDL, T.M., HAHN, G.L. DEVELOPMENT OF RUGGED ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING UNITS FOR TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY. APPLIED ENGINEERING IN AGRICULTURE. 2002. v. 18(4):493-496.

Interpretive Summary: Animal studies involve measurements of temperature and humidity. There are many approaches to these measurements but few offer good accuracy and low cost. We developed two low-cost units using commercially available sensors. This paper reports the performance and reliability of those units.

Technical Abstract: Research on the effects of thermal environments requires monitoring and control based on temperature and humidity sensor measurements. There are many approaches to both temperature and humidity measurements but few offer high reliability in hostile environments with acceptable accuracy and relatively low cost. The Biological Engineering Research Unit at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center evaluated two separate units that were developed with commercially available sensors for meeting the cost/performance criteria: 1) a linear temperature sensor designed around a National Semiconductor LM35CA, 2)an Ohmic Instruments Company ABS 300 sensor. This report details sensor calibration and performance.