A smart collar for cows
thehustle.co
thehustle.co
https://groups.csail.mit.edu/drl/animals_robots/cow_herding/...
The collar you see there had a Zaurus PDA which ran the herding algorithm and managed the ad-hoc peer-to-peer wireless network between the cows. Each collar also had a GPS unit and a tiny guitar amplifier/speaker was used to amplify the sounds (WAV files played by the Zaurus). We had only minor success in using sounds to herd them, mostly they would ignore the sounds after a while. CSIRO in Australia and a USDA researcher who patented the idea 20+ years ago extended the work further eventually using electric shocks from an ear tag to train the cattle to associate a sound with a shock, then later using just the sound to manage the cattle. They got very good results with this while minimizing the stress on the cattle due to shocks. So I'm somewhat dubious that this company has had much success with just a buzzing sound. Even shocks won't stop a cow if it is determined. They are herd animals however and feel uncomfortable if away from the herd, so if most of the herd obeys eventually the stragglers will come round.
We stopped working on it when we started getting inquiries from companies wanting to use the technology on prisoners. Herding people electronically is just wrong.
We also talked with an animal ethics researcher who was concerned that the cattle would not be visited by the ranchers as often and would suffer because of it. For example, sensors can tell you if a cow has a fever but not if it has a stone in its hoof. If you trust the sensors too much and don't visit the animals as much the animals can be harmed.
We tried BLE, image detection, loads of different approaches which worked at "prototype scale", the problems were:
1. Farms are geographically big, tend to have hills and metal stuff which bounces signals all over the place. LoRa is slow, BLE has a short area. If you're close enough to connect with the cow, you might as well get out the truck and do whatever it is yourself.
2. Animals, especially cows, can and will destroy anything they trample. That includes expensive dongles, wifi base stations, pipes, electric lines. This infrastructure is flimsy and hardening it costs money, especially against water ingress.
3. Cost. A $20 tech strapped to a $100 animal is a considerable percentage of your RoI. The margins are so low, it's just not worth doing this at scale.
The thing is, there is no tech solution that does cattle herding better than a farmer.
Like you said, it's actually easier to get a quadbike and go look.
But no, typically a cow costs on the order of a thousand dollars.
Impressive.
Cows are just like any other people.
So for cow logistics rising global temperatures may come in handy! Of course, in the long run you may have to tinker a bit with the heat resistance of these organisms.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Effect-of-Evaporat...
Nah, just kidding...
Sweet dreams.
The novelty here is the remote herdkeeping functions. The limit to adapting such tech is usually collar cost and battery life (the industry usually aims for 5+ years of battery life).
Of course the environment is pretty hostile too. Neck collars get snagged on things, exposed to mud and rain, etc.
Anyway, it’s not like “technology finally makes it to farms”. Dairy cows are the worlds most monitored animals.
That particular farm had collars and auto-switching gates plus four milking robots.
Pastures are most productive when cattle eat the grass in an individual section to a particular minimum height, and then are moved to the next section. Cattle are fairly easily controlled via trivial annoyances (which makes various barbaric methods like hotshots used by some ranchers particularly unethical), so it makes sense that noise/vibration could move them in a particular direction. There would probably be some leakage, since different individuals have different personalities and tolerances. It looks like you could see the animals who escape on the map in the app, so that would be nice.
Since we AI quite a bit the heat detection would be great. I wonder how it works? Maybe the collars communicate their relative positions to each other?
While the idea of vibrating collars to steer cattle makes me uneasy (what comes next?), I am somewhat hopeful this can address the issue of barbed wire fences.
Interestingly, the idea of remotely controlling cattle was discussed several years ago in an article outlining the the issues with fences: https://prairieecologist.com/2015/03/17/hubbard-fellowship-b...
If a cow automatically moves to the right area then they don’t have to be herded. This reduces time. Some cows will likely need encouragement but it sounds like this reduces not only time, but stress on the livestock.
Fences are still likely needed.
* more flexible and appropriate sizing of grazing areas based on current herd size and where the grass is literally greenest
* the above can also increase dairy yield per sq/m by a considerable amount (I can’t recall the exact numbers I was quoted)
* multiple startups I’ve spoken to in this area also think they’ll be able to use on device biometric sensors to detect when cows need to urinate. Before that happens herd them to dedicated area or drainage pans. Again expected increases in yields and less pasture damage.
* biometrics also provide early indicators of potential health issues.
Nothing wrong with wire fences though. They’ve clearly worked fine for over a hundred years.
It doesn't injure cattle. I have seen horses injured by barbed wire, but horses are sort of a special case.
I note in the article they say "Holy cow!" as a play on words I guess, but here in Dunedin we have a milk company called Holy Cow: https://www.holycow.nz/
It's wonderful milk.
This is just a wireless electric fence. Cue joke about the old lady and radio telegraphy[1]. :-)
(It doesn't, because cows will reach through and around a fence to get bites of tall grass on the other side, and if it doesn't shock them at that point they'll start pushing through to reach more.)
The cow will hear a beep long before it gets zapped. It's the same as for invisible fences with pet collars.
bonus point: tourists love those so much you can buy smaller models at the airport.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_stations...
Also a bell doesn't stop them getting through a fence and into your neighbours property or heading bush.
A big part of this tech is pasture management. Ideally you want to keep a herd moving so they only eat the top third of pasture and move on. This can help automate that task.
Not least what they mention about real time feedback about cattle health.
I don't doubt bells are useful, but this tech is at another level of helpfulness. It's a smart phone vs yelling difference.
The big question is cost and measurable benifit. Having to mesh wifi a large property won't be cheap (maybe just water points for daily updates?), the cost per collar and how long they last and how this plays into grazing and health benifits will decide how viable this tech is.
I just want to add that mesh wifi is not necessary here. Given the amount of bandwidth needed (very little), LoRaWAN (1) with its ~3-10km range will be quite practical.
Though farmers are interested in selling carbon credits. This still needs figuring out, but of they can make some side cash they will.
Though it may well also be that you have an extraordinarily freakish range of hearing.
Though having said that, the cows on the farms near where I grew up would line themselves up at the gate to be milked, and one farmer would just open the gate while another shooed the stragglers back towards the herd. If this thing is anything less than 100% effective it doesn't seem like it would save much work, since you'd still need someone on a quad bike to deal with the nuisances.
If we had this system the first thing to do would be to stop all this shitting on the road!
To not inconvenience drivers and other road users, or to get that precious manure back fertilizing your grass?
in all seriousness though, i'd be surprised if we don't see at least one comical headline in the future about cows being hacked and remote-controlled!
It totally makes sense though!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Rotenberg_Educational_Ce...
"Employees are encouraged to file anonymous reports against each other, and are forbidden from making casual conversation."
And this is the icing on the cake:
"As of 2014, nearly 90% of the center's residents were from New York City, and about 90% of the residents were racial minorities."