In this thesis, submitted under the modality of compendium of publications, the possibilities of using the animal activity as a predictive variable in the modern environmental control systems are evaluated. In this document it is reflected the work done during the PhD period. During the next lines, different environmental and animal variables, registered during two productive cycles in an intensive livestock farm of weaned piglets, are studied. After a deep study of the animal activity, measured with a passive infrared detector, the results point out this variable as a promising tool to be implemented in the incipient predictive control algorithms