Architecture of automatized control system for honey bee indoor wintering process monitoring and control

Abstract

Honey bee wintering process is one of the biological processes, which nowadays can be monitored and controlled using the information technologies, control methods and tools. Control and monitoring of such process is really complicated and not a trivial task, because behavior of the biological system, biological objects and their reaction to human intervention is unpredictable. To complete this task it is necessary to build complex control system architecture with many subsystems and elements. The automatized system architecture proposed by the authors is developed to improve the honey bee wintering process and to incorporate information technologies into this process. The system is mainly used for individual honey bee colony monitoring and control. In order to develop such biological process control system it is necessary to use various information technologies and expert knowledge in the specific biological field. Honey bee wintering process takes place in a closed environment, where microclimate control system controls the environment microclimate parameters based on measurement device data. At the same time honey bee hive temperature measurement system collects data about bee activity. Bee hive temperature is the main factor, which is used for bee activity monitoring. Measurement results are automatically transferred to the remote computational system, which completes data summarizing and analyzing. Based on predefined algorithms and prediction models, computational system recognizes the state of the bee colony. Taking into account additional external data and taking into account operator's judgment, the system makes decision whether to change the main control task. The automatized system architecture for the complex task of honeybee wintering process monitoring and control proposed by the authors can be divided into smaller logical and technical parts or so called sub-systems. These sub-systems can be developed individually and independently, but by combining them all together it is possible to build an advanced control system. The authors also consider that important place in the system architecture is taken by prediction models. The usage of the prediction models in the architecture allows the system to make a decision about bee family state more precisely and independently from the operator. During the honey bee wintering process it is possible to use quality and quantitative models. Mainly models are used for determination of the activity stage of the bee colony.