Research control system Smart Waiter

The purpose of Smart Waiter System is to control the feeding and drinking patterns of rodents that are located in their regular living cages. The system comprises a central control unit and one or many feeder/drinker units. Each unit has a weighting scale incorporate to continually monitor and report intake to the control unit. The control unit can manage a combination of up to 64 feeders/drinkers using user-defined protocols which are then assigned to the units. It’s possible to assign a different protocol per unit per day for maximum versatility. Each protocol is comprised by an arbitrary number of steps that control the door’s opening hour and the duration and maximum intake for the feeding episode. The units are battery powered and wirelessly connected to the controller. These features allow keeping the animals’ environment free of wires. The system can be completely visualized and controlled using the controller unit’s touch screen, and using the Wi-Fi functionality it can also be controlled with a browser through any connected device (PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc). During an experiment, a log in CSV format is created and stored in the controller’s internal storage. These log files can be downloaded and visualized from a PC even while the experiment is running. The state of all the feeders/drinkers can be checked either through the controller’s screen or from a connected device at any time. This information includes errors such as connection problems, incorrect door state and warnings for low battery conditions. Furthermore, automatic warning emails can be configured to be sent when errors or warnings appear in the system.