ARS scientists are helping to develop technology
that can not only track cattle with a Global Positioning System (GIS) but may
allow their movements to be controlled across a landscapeand even be
remotely rounded up into a corral. Click the image for more information
about it.
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A Futuristic Linkage of Animals and Electronics
By Don Comis
June 6, 2008 The same Global Positioning System (GPS)
technology used to track vehicles is now being used to track cows.
But Agricultural Research Service (ARS) animal scientist
Dean M.
Anderson has taken tracking several steps further with a Walkman-like
headset that enables him to "whisper" wireless commands to cows to
control their movements across a landscapeand even remotely gather them
into a corral.
He and his colleagues realize this is a highly futuristic technology, but
they can envision a time when these technologies will be affordable and useful
for a range of applications, from intensive animal operations to monitoring and
controlling the movements of some wildlife species and even household pets.
Anderson, at the ARS
Jornada
Experimental Range in Las Cruces, N.M., is working with Daniela Rus and a
team of engineers at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge to equip an Ear-A-Round (EAR) device
with state-of-art electronics. Their latest prototype is a doughnut-shaped
stereo headset worn over each ear. Andersons headset design and his
knowledge of range animal ecology have been combined with the MIT scientists'
electronics skills in robotics and mobile computing.
Prior to working with MIT, Anderson patented technology for virtual fencing
termed Directional Virtual Fencing (DVF) that centered around giving cows
"left" and "right" sensory signals to cause them to move
away from an irritating suite of cues.
The researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory have developed and prototyped a miniaturized
electronics package for DVF devices that is solar- powered and is packaged as a
headset device. The circuit board contains a processor, data storage, WiFi for
remote communication, audio and electrical stimulation electronics, a GPS
receiver, and sensors such as magnetometers and accelerometers that record the
body orientation and configuration of the animal.
The commands vary from familiar gathering songs sung by cowboys
during manual round-ups, to irritating sounds such as sirens and even mild
electric stimulation if necessary to get cows to move or avoid penetrating
forbidden boundaries.
ARS is a scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture .