Dr. Terry Fonstad of the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan said he hopes the third phase will lead to commercialization.
Those involved include the University of Saskatchewan, the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), the Prairie Swine Centre and the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI), and others from Ontario and Wisconsin.
"PAMI's work has now brought in partners from the robotics industry, a robotics company out of Ontario and a hydrovac system company out of Wisconsin, that are interested in combining their talents to actually perhaps commercialise the wash system," said Dr Fonstad in an interview with The Pig Site.
"VIDO's work will go into the field. In the lab we know we can kill these pathogens with heat but now we have to take pathogens that may have the same characteristics, but not be swine pathogens, and test them in actual bake ovens that bake trailers and make sure that we're actually getting the kill that we need.
"They may have to be proxy pathogens. We're working through that with them.
"The Prairie Swine Centre is working with the trailer manufacturers and we, at the College of Engineering are working with a private company called Transport Genie and Be Seen Be Safe out of Guelph that is actually already working on the humidity and temperature sensing for animal welfare and we're going to add onto their product the ability to trace the trailer, GPS, and be able to sense the heating of the actual trailer frame for pathogen destruction," Dr. Fonstad said
