A sensor-fusion-system for tracking sheep location and behaviour

• Main Authors: Keni Ren, Johannes Karlsson, Markus Liuska, Markku Hartikainen, Inger Hansen, Grete HM Jørgensen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2020-05-01
• Series: International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/1550147720921776

The growing interest in precision livestock farming is prompted by a desire to understand the basic behavioural needs of the animals and optimize the contribution of each animal. The aim of this study was to develop a system that automatically generated individual animal behaviour and localization data in sheep. A sensor-fusion-system tracking individual sheep position and detecting sheep standing/lying behaviour was proposed. The mean error and standard deviation of sheep position performed by the ultra-wideband location system was 0.357 ± 0.254 m, and the sensitivity of the sheep standing and lying detection performed by infrared radiation cameras and three-dimenional computer vision technology were 98.16% and 100%, respectively. The proposed system was able to generate individual animal activity reports and the real-time detection was achieved. The system can increase the convenience for animal behaviour studies and monitoring of animal welfare in the production environment.