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.