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Introduction
Associate Professor in the Higher Politechnic School of the University of Santiago de Compostela.
Animal activity, energy eficiency, indoor climate and climate control in farms are some of my researgh interests.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (35)
This study characterizes the growth of weaned Large White × Landrace hybrid piglets from 6 to 20 kg live body weight (BW) under real farm conditions. Batches of 50 castrated male pigs and 50 gilts were weighed repeatedly over two 6-week breeding cycles. The data was fitted to various linear (quadratic and exponential) and nonlinear (Gompertz, Richa...
Measuring animal activity and its evolution in real time is useful for animal welfare assessment. In addition, illuminance and noise level are two factors that can improve our understanding of animal activity. This study aims to establish relationships between animal activity as measured by passive infrared sensors, and both illuminance and noise l...
This paper aims to study the evolution of CO2 concentrations and emissions on a conventional farm with weaned piglets between 6.9 and 17.0 kg live weight based on setpoint temperature, outdoor temperature, and ventilation flow. The experimental trial was conducted during one transition cycle. Generally, the ventilation flow increased with the reduc...
Measuring ammonia inside livestock buildings poses many challenges that hinder the incorporation of this variable into environmental control systems. The aim of this study was to measure various microclimate variables inside a weaned piglet building and analyse their interactions with NH3 concentrations for setpoint temperatures of 26 and 25 °C, in...
Measuring animal activity is useful for monitoring animal welfare in real time. In this regard, passive infrared detectors have been used in recent years to quantify piglet activity because of their robustness and ease of use. This study was conducted on a commercial farm in Northwest Spain during six complete breeding cycles. The hourly average ac...
Postweaning is one of the most sensitive and energy-demanding phases of swine production. The objective of this research was to assess the energy, production and environmental characteristics of a conventional farm with temperature-based environmental control. The selected energy, environmental and production variables were measured on farm, in a h...
Ammonia (NH 3) concentration has seldom been used for environmental control of weaner buildings despite its impact on environment, animal welfare, and workers' health. This paper aims to determine the effects of setpoint temperature (ST) on the daily evolution of NH 3 concentration in the animal-occupied zone. An experimental test was conducted on...
![Figure 4: Daily patterns of animal activity. Adapted from [72] and [73].](publication/347687140/figure/fig4/AS:973971520516097@1609224314641/Daily-patterns-of-animal-activity-Adapted-from-72-and-73_Q320.jpg)
An AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average model was validated for the prediction of temperatures in the animal zone of conventional weaned piglet barn. The validation period covered seven cycles and recorded values at 10-min intervals for 292 days. Average weight was 5.75 ± 0.86 kg at the beginning of the production cycle and 18.41 ± 2.12 kg at t...
Passive infrared (PIR) detectors are widely used to measure animal activity, which is an increasingly relevant variable for livestock production insofar as activity is an indicator of animal welfare. This paper evaluates the agreement between two animal activity measurement methods: a PIR detector that uses the sensor's digital signal to perform me...
Predictive models provide an efficient tool for improving environmental control in livestock buildings. In this paper, a robust and accurate ARIMA model for forecasting temperature inside a building for weaned piglets in the range 6 to 20 kg live weight was built. The candidate models presented in this paper predict 10-min values during a complete...
Carbon dioxide concentration is a major factor in air quality, animal welfare and air exchange rates inside livestock buildings. CO2 concentration series show a dynamic, non-linear and non-stationary behavior. This type of process can be handled by Wavelet Neural Network (WNN) models, which have been developed in recent years. The purpose of this p...
The aim of this study is to know the temperature value in the animal zone from measurements of temperatures in other locations, besides the temperature variation related with height as well as longitudinally and transversely variation. The study has been developed in a weaning room of a conventional piglet production farm of 20 kg live weight locat...
The activity level of weaned piglets provides a useful tool for farmers to control animal welfare and pollutant emissions. In addition, data for weaned piglet activity can be used as an input signal in real-time ventilation control systems because of its relation to temperature and CO2 levels. This paper characterises the daily activity pattern of...
Environmental temperature is the main indoor climate component in piglet weaning buildings. Nevertheless, the temperature control is carried out through sensors away from the animal zone. The objectives of this work are
to determine: (I) the value of the temperature in the animal zone from measurements at far locations out of reach of the animals;...
Predictive models provide an efficient tool for improving environmental control in livestock buildings. In this article, a robust and accurate ARIMA model for forecasting temperature inside a building for weaned piglets in the range 6 to 20 kg live weight was built. The candidate models presented in this article predict 10 min values during a compl...
The environmental assessment of a pig farming system from a cradle-to-farm gate perspective was carried out in this study. To do so, two separated farms destined to the weaning and fattening of pigs were analysed in Galicia (Northwest Spain). The standard framework of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was followed to assess the environmental performa...
Animal activity has a decisive influence on the concentration of gases in pig housing, accordingly, on animal welfare. Thus, the animal behaviour will condition the operation of air conditioning systems and energy consumption of farms. The aim is to characterize animal activity in a conventional farm of piglets of 20 kg live weight, and its relatio...
The measurement of NH3 in the air in livestock housing, besides being difficult and expensive, presents numerous problems. Due to these researchers studied relation between ammonia and other easily measured variables. The aim of this work is the knowledge of the indoor environment of piglets, their environmental variables the interaction between th...
The temperature influences on animal activity, which affects on the CO2 concentration, a variable with high impact on animal welfare. Animal behavior has a decisive impact on the operation of air conditioning systems, with consequent impact on the energy consumption of farms. The objective of this work is to characterize animal activity, daily and...
The influence of the type of farming on harmful gas exposures to carbon dioxide (CO(2)), ammonia (NH(3)) and hydrogen sulfide (H(2)S) was assessed from the perspective of animal welfare and occupational hygiene. Summer data of H(2)S, NH(3) and CO(2) concentrations and of environmental parameters were collected from 31 farms. The indices of exposure...
A finite element method-based model of a substrate heated by an electric heating cable buried in a thermal isolated container was experimentally validated with root mean square error values of root zone temperature ranging 0.25 to 0.62 degrees C. The two-dimensional transient model allowed variations in the physical properties of the substrate with...
This paper studies the behaviour of the voltage in steady state when fixed speed small wind turbines with induction generator are connected in distributed generation. Wind turbines used have horizontal axe, rotor located on the windward side and three-bladed and the power control is passive. A model of turbines and electric lines is created by MATL...
Heat transfer processes occurring in greenhouse cultivation substrates are very complex due to the high number of environmental and soil factors involved. Few estimation methods allow establishing the energy consumption of the heating elements as a function of the design parameters (depth and spacing) and of environmental and cultivation criteria,...
Substrate heating in greenhouses shows important benefits for crop development. Yet, the high energy costs of these systems demand the application of energy-saving strategies, which requires an appropriate dimensioning of the system that allows for prediction of substrate temperature distribution and energy performance. In this study, we analyze th...
Substrate heating in greenhouses shows important benefits for crop development. Yet, the energy costs of the system are high and demand the application of energy saving strategies. This study analyses the effect of heating cable spacing on the power of the cable and on temperature variability in the root zone. A general-purpose finite-element code...
This study presents a two-dimensional model of the thermal behavior of electric cable heating systems for substrates in greenhouses, developed in a transient state by using a general-purpose finite element code. In this model, the thermal properties of substrate can be introduced directly by layers or estimated by methods that allow the determinati...
The development of optimal control strategies in greenhouses requires precise models of energy transfer. A flexible model that enables the introduction of different substrate parameters and boundary conditions was developed for electric cable heating installations. The model is based on finite element analysis and is implemented by using a commerci...
Heat transfer processes occurring in greenhouse cultivation substrates are very complex due to the high number of environmental and soil factors involved. Few estimation methods allow establishing the capacity of the heating elements as a function of the design parameters (depth and spacing) and of environmental and cultivation criteria, such as th...
