Sunday, October 6, 2019

Herding Cattle with Drones

Drone flying
Photo by Karl Greif on Unsplash

Jeremiah Caughron is an accomplished construction and restoration expert who has owned and operated Tayga Texas since 2017. Outside of the professional arena, Jeremiah Caughron is an avid drone enthusiast who is currently exploring the potential of drone-based cattle herding.

In this pursuit, he is following in the footsteps of high-tech ranchers who have already learned how to modify drone airframes and direct drone propeller wash to heard cattle effectively and remotely. Although the sound and the force of the drone propeller may initially be enough to prompt movement in cattle, ranchers can also add a siren to the drone to provide extra motivation.

A drone camera can also help ranchers locate and identify specific animals. Even better, a thermal camera can detect cattle under the cover of dense vegetation while differentiating them from other sources of heat.

Dr. John Church of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology sees far-reaching implications for drone herding coupled with radio-frequency identification (RFID). By placing an RFID tag on each animal, ranchers may one day be able to input a specific RFID number that will enable a drone to find any given animal in the field.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.