Development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Precision Cattle Ranching

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Every year many British Columbia ranchers experience difficulty in retrieving cow/calf pairs off range, and spend tremendous manpower looking for lost cattle. New methods will be explored for the successful detection of cattle, and potentially even gathering and moving the animals on range, by unmanned aerial vehicles. We will develop for the cattle industry unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are equipped with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) antennae that are able to quickly detect the location of cattle that have ultra high frequency (UHF)RFID ear tags. The project will demonstrate the value and quality of the data, the tolerance of the animals to the vehicles, and the value of the integrated UAV/UHF-RFID system for improved management of beef cattle in extensive grazing systems. We will test the best type of craft to carry the radio-frequency antennae. Flight paths will be either pre-programmed with waypoint software or flown manually. Some of the systems' features, which will be tested, include: height and distance limits, return-to-home, auto-takeoff landing, automated collision avoidance, along with the accuracy of field detection of cattle by the craft. In addition, the value of additional on board sensors including multi spectral imaging and infrared thermography will be tested on the unmanned aerial vehicles. And finally, we will determine the best type of UHF-RFID tag to use in the cattle ears with the UAV multi-rotor system. Our industry collaborator in Golden, British Columbia will provide the site locations and cattle in order to demonstrate this technology. Success will be determined by successfully identifying the location of cattle from the air via radio frequency identification by the UAV, along with successfully matching the location to the GPS on board the craft and visual confirmation of cattle by the UAV via video down-link. In addition, we will use multi spectral imagery via a specialized camera on board to do range and pasture assessment through data-processing of images collected during mapping flights.