Project Overview
Commodities
- Animals: poultry
- Animal Products: eggs, meat
Practices
- Animal Production: free-range, grazing - rotational
- Farm Business Management: labor/employment
- Sustainable Communities: community development, new business opportunities
Proposal summary:
This project focuses on developing autonomous agricultural technologies that support rural community development, regenerative land management, and experiential learning. Its primary objective is to design, test, and evaluate an autonomous, mobile chicken coop capable of continuous seven-day operation with minimal supervision, while examining its contributions to animal welfare, soil health, and household and community economic resilience. A secondary objective is to generate transferable knowledge to scale the system for larger agricultural operations through a subsequent Smart Rural Chicken model.
The plan of work centers on engineering and prototyping the Smart Backyard Chicken system and integrating AI/ML-enabled monitoring to track soil conditions, feed usage, flock health indicators, water quality and availability, and all aspects of coop functionality. Field trials will incorporate rotational grazing principles to assess impacts on soil aeration, nutrient cycling, vegetation recovery, and biodiversity. Soil testing, operational measurements, and performance data will jointly inform a technical and scientific evaluation of the system's regenerative and economic potential. Insights from this first phase will guide the design of a scalable autonomous system for mid-sized rural farms.
Outreach is central to the project's mission. High school students, Penn State undergraduate and graduate students, local farmers, and community partners will participate in hands-on design activities, demonstrations, and data-centered workshops. These engagement efforts will strengthen agricultural literacy, foster innovation, and build community capacity for regenerative and autonomous farming practices. Through this integrated approach, the project will assess how autonomous small-scale systems can improve household well-being, promote soil regeneration, and support long-term rural economic revitalization.
Project objectives from proposal:
The Smart Backyard Chicken project aims to develop, test, and evaluate an autonomous, mobile poultry management system that strengthens soil health, promotes animal welfare, reduces labor burdens, and enhances the viability of small and mid-scale farms in the Northeast. The technology will also promote sustainable homesteading, and contribute to communities' mental and physical health, and food security. The following objectives describe, in specific and measurable terms, what this project intends to achieve during the implementation period.
Objective 1: Design and construct a fully
functional autonomous mobile chicken coop capable of operating
continuously for seven days with minimal human
intervention.
This objective will be met by engineering a mobile coop platform
equipped with automated watering, feed delivery, ventilation, and
environmental controls, as well as structural elements appropriate
for rotational grazing. The finished prototype will be field-ready
and documented through system specifications, engineering drawings,
and operational logs.
Objective 2: Develop and implement an AI/ML-enabled
monitoring system that tracks soil conditions, feed usage, water
availability, flock health indicators, and coop-level functionality
in real time.
This system will be built collaboratively with Penn State faculty
and student researchers. Measurable outputs include validated data
streams from sensors, functioning algorithms capable of detecting
anomalies or irregularities, and dashboards or data summaries
supporting management decisions. Success will be measured by system
accuracy, reliability, and usability in field settings.
Objective 3: Evaluate the system's impact on soil
health and pasture regeneration through structured rotational
grazing trials.
This includes pre- and post-grazing soil assessments measuring
compaction, nutrient availability, organic matter levels, ground
cover, and moisture retention. The objective will be met when
quantitative comparisons document soil response under autonomous
coop movement relative to existing manual practices.
Objective 4: Assess animal welfare
outcomes-including access to clean water, feed stability,
behavioral indicators, mortality, and predator exposure-under
autonomous management conditions.
This objective will be evaluated using measurable welfare
indicators tracked through manual observations and monitoring data.
Documentation will include flock health records, predator
incidents, and overall performance of the autonomous system
relative to traditional management.
Objective 5: Quantify labor savings, operational
efficiencies, and economic impacts associated with autonomous coop
deployment.
This includes tracking labor hours saved, reductions in feed and
water waste, improvements in productivity, and estimated cost
impacts. Data will be collected through time-use logs, resource
consumption measurements, and cost-benefit analyses conducted with
support from collaborating faculty and students.
Objective 6: Train and engage undergraduate and
graduate students in AI/ML-driven sustainable agriculture research
under the supervision of Penn State
faculty.
Success will be measured by the number of students participating,
training modules completed, analytic tools developed, and
contributions to field data collection, modeling, and
evaluation.
Objective 7: Develop and deliver outreach
programming-including workshops, demonstrations, and community
presentations-to share project findings with farmers, rural
residents, high school students, and agricultural
educators.
This objective will be achieved through documented events,
attendance counts, educational materials developed, and participant
feedback surveys evaluating usefulness and relevance.
Together, these objectives create a coherent pathway for testing autonomous poultry management practices, generating rigorous data, engaging the community, and advancing sustainable agriculture across the Northeast.