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The International Journal of Robotics Research
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From Robots to Animals: Virtual Fences for Controlling Cattle

Zack Butler

Computer Science Department, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623 USA, zjb{at}cs.rit.edu

Peter Corke

CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia, peter.corke{at}csiro.au

Ron Peterson

Dartmouth Computer Science Department, Hanover, NH 03755 USA, rapjr{at}cs.dartmouth.edu

Daniela Rus

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge MA 02139, USA, rus{at}csail.mit.edu

We consider the problem of monitoring and controlling the position of herd animals, and view animals as networked agents with natural mobility but not strictly controllable. By exploiting knowledge of individual and herd behavior we would like to apply a vast body of theory in robotics and motion planning to achieving the constrained motion of a herd.

In this paper we describe the concept of a virtual fence which applies a stimulus to an animal as a function of its pose with respect to the fenceline. Multiple fence lines can define a region, and the fences can be static or dynamic. The fence algorithm is implemented by a small position-aware computer device worn by the animal, which we refer to as a Smart Collar. We describe a herd-animal simulator, the Smart Collar hardware and algorithms for tracking and controlling animals as well as the results of on-farm experiments with up to ten Smart Collars.

Key Words: animal modeling • animal control • distributed control • virtual fences

The International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 25, No. 5-6, 485-508 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0278364906065375
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