Pigs
Automated VOC-based monitoring designed to detect changes in pig health earlier, supporting faster intervention, improved welfare and more resilient production.
Pig production faces significant health challenges, with disease outbreaks affecting welfare, growth rates, mortality, medicine use and farm profitability. Many diseases begin to affect animals before visible clinical signs are obvious, creating a need for earlier, non-invasive monitoring in commercial pig environments.
RoboScientific is developing SwineSense, an automated disease monitoring platform for pigs based on analysis of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, in the air of indoor pig buildings. As disease status changes, animals and their environment produce changing VOC patterns. RoboScientific’s sensor technology is designed to detect these biochemical changes and provide farmers with earlier insight into herd health.
The system builds on RoboScientific’s wider VOC sensing platform, combining automated air sampling, proprietary sensor arrays and machine-learning analysis to identify changes associated with disease risk. The aim is to give producers practical, interpreted alerts that can support earlier investigation, veterinary input and targeted intervention.
Initial feasibility work has shown the potential for VOC-based detection in pig environments, and RoboScientific is progressing further development towards practical use in commercial pig units. The approach is non-invasive, automated and designed to complement existing veterinary and farm management practices.
SwineSense forms part of RoboScientific’s broader livestock health intelligence platform, alongside its lead poultry application and further development across calves and dairy.
