A Hybrid Model for Temperature Prediction in a Sheep House

Area of Science:

• Agricultural Engineering
• Environmental Monitoring
• Machine Learning Applications

Background:

• Extreme temperatures in sheep housing pose significant risks to animal health and growth.
• Accurate temperature prediction and early warning systems are vital for maintaining optimal sheep husbandry conditions.
• Traditional Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) models face challenges with parameter selection randomness and empirical limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an optimized Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model for predicting sheep house temperature.
• To address parameter selection issues in traditional XGBoost by integrating Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO).
• To enhance the accuracy and stability of temperature prediction models for intensive sheep farming.

Main Methods:

• Implemented Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for dimensionality reduction and identification of key temperature influencing factors.
• Utilized Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to perform a global search and determine optimal hyperparameters for the XGBoost model.
• Developed and validated the PCA-PSO-XGBoost model using temperature data from an intensive sheep breeding base.

Main Results:

• The PCA-PSO-XGBoost model achieved high prediction accuracy with metrics: RMSE of 0.0433, MSE of 0.0019, R² of 0.9995, and MAE of 0.0065.
• Demonstrated significant improvements over the traditional XGBoost model, with RMSE, MSE, and MAE enhanced by 68%, 90%, and 94%, respectively.
• The proposed model exhibited superior accuracy and stability compared to existing temperature prediction methods.

Conclusions:

• The PCA-PSO-XGBoost model provides a highly accurate and stable solution for predicting sheep house temperatures.
• The model offers effective guidance for monitoring and regulating temperature in intensive housing environments.
• Potential for extension to predict environmental parameters in other animal housing systems, such as pig and cow houses.