Cloud-based Homecage-Integrated Monitoring System to Improve Animal Care

Authors

• MA Garmendia
• AV Kravitz
• MA Ali
• JU Dennis
• CJ Foltz
• GH Salem
• JA Krynitsky
• CA Roque
• TJ Pohida

Abstract

Rodents are frequently used at research institutions in large numbers to help understand mechanisms of disease and develop new therapies that are translatable to human beings. Assessing experimental effects and caring for animals appropriately require that the behavior and welfare of the animal be monitored. Although there are commercially available rodent monitoring systems, they tend to be expensive, limited to proprietary cages, and require high data rates. A low-cost sensor-based “smart cage” is in development aimed to monitor the behavior and micro-environment of rodents in most common caging systems. The scalable system wirelessly uploads the raw sensor data to a centralized database for logging and processing which can be assessed in real-time by researchers and animal care facility staff. Furthermore, the low data rate allows innovative real-time visualization and analytics using a cloud-based server, which is internet-accessible via a PC web-based dashboard, or tablet/smartphone applications. Additional functionality, such as generating critical alerts (e.g., high temperature, flooding, absence of activity, etc.) can also be implemented with the system.

Scientific Focus Area: Biomedical Engineering and Biophysics

This page was last updated on Friday, March 26, 2021