BEHARUM project: use of ICT to monitor feeding behaviour in grazing ruminants

摘要

Developments in microelectromechanical system (MEMS) and information and communication technologies provide new opportunities for the automatic monitoring of animal behaviour. The BEHARUM project is aimed to realize an automatic recording device for monitoring the grazing behaviour of ruminants. Hie device includes a small, low power, complete three-axis acccleromcter with signal-conditioned voltage outputs. It can measure the static acceleration of gravity in tilt-sensing applications, as well as dynamic acceleration resulting from motion, shock, or vibration. The sensor 'inserted in MEMS is attached to the lower jaw and, thanks to its miniaturization, has a minimum impact on the animal. The system is able to continuously sample accelerations and to send three values at 1-s intervals to a nearby computer, by a ZigBee wireless module connected to it, or to a remote computer via Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). Data acquisition and analysis is realized by l software installed in the receiving computer. Calibration and validation of the system is ongoing, comparing acceleration with video-recording data to automatically classify three activities, eating, ruminating and resting in grazing dairy sheep. A data mining approach followed bymultivariate analyses {rocedurcs, allows automatic classification of the three activities, saving battery charge to lengthen the rccording session. The system is upgradable with other sensors such as the global positioning system and itcould become a useful tool to effectively drive the management of pastoral resources.