Development of Activity Collecting System for Grazing Cattle in Vast Land

Abstract

Dairy farming in Japan has low milk supply and reproductive rate per cattle, which is considered to be due to lack of proper breeding management. In order to solve this problem, there is a demand for a breeding management system that does not require human intervention, utilizing the ICT and robot technology. Studies on cow health and breeding management using various sensors have been reported, in this paper, we develop the system to collect the amount of activity and position of the grazing cattle in vast land. The developed system is (i) the “cattle sensor” composed of a GPS module and an acceleration sensor and (ii) the data transfer system composed of a wireless module and solar cells. The cow sensor can be used continuously for 2 months without battery replacement and is a system that can be used in vast land and mountain areas. And the data obtained from the sensor suggest the possibility of estrus detection.