The design and evaluation of a mobile sensor/actuator network for autonomous animal control

TLDR

Fighting between high‑value bulls during breeding seasons causes significant financial loss, and the application requires dynamic animal state estimation, real‑time actuation, and efficient mobile wireless transmissions. The study investigates a mobile, wireless sensor/actuator network to autonomously prevent bull fighting in on‑farm breeding paddocks by applying appropriate stimuli when one bull approaches another. We designed a state‑machine algorithm for animal state estimation, used it to trigger autonomous actuation, and implemented a simple wireless communication model that achieves high delivery rates in mobile environments. Simulations and field experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of the autonomous animal control system.

Abstract

This paper investigates a mobile, wireless sensor/actuator network application for use in the cattle breeding industry. Our goal is to prevent fighting between bulls in on-farm breeding paddocks by autonomously applying appropriate stimuli when one bull approaches another bull. This is an important application because fighting between high-value animals such as bulls during breeding seasons causes significant financial loss to producers. Furthermore, there are significant challenges in this type of application because it requires dynamic animal state estimation, real-time actuation and efficient mobile wireless transmissions. We designed and implemented an animal state estimation algorithm based on a state-machine mechanism for each animal. Autonomous actuation is performed based on the estimated states of an animal relative to other animals. A simple, yet effective, wireless communication model has been proposed and implemented to achieve high delivery rates in mobile environments. We evaluated the performance of our design by both simulations and field experiments, which demonstrated the effectiveness of our autonomous animal control system.