Sensor Technology For Animal Health Monitoring

The scale of dairy farming worldwide has changed significantly over recent years, with a move towards larger, more intensive, profit-driven enterprises, primarily due to market pressures. This change has resulted in demand for technologies that can reduce costs and labour inputs while increasing farm productivity. This is mainly achieved through the use of farm automation and advanced technological techniques.

An important aspect of farm automation that is currently being researched is the area of automated animal health monitoring. In this research, we have identified specific diseases which are common in dairy animals which can be identified through the use of non-invasive, low-cost, sensor technology. These diseases have been mapped to specific aspects of animal behaviour that have been mapped to the three sensors which are most significant to identify these diseases. The identified sensors will be shown to be vital in the development of the next generation of health monitoring system for dairy animals. Such a system will allow the automatic identification of animal health events, greatly increasing overall herd health and yield while reducing animal health inspection and long-term animal healthcare costs.