A LoRa sensor network for monitoring pastured livestock location and activity

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorDos Reis, Barbara R.en
dc.contributor.authorEaston, Zachary M.en
dc.contributor.authorWhite, Robin R.en
dc.contributor.authorFuka, Daniel R.en
dc.date.accessioned2021-09-02T17:44:47Zen
dc.date.available2021-09-02T17:44:47Zen
dc.date.issued2021-01-21en
dc.description.abstractPrecision technologies for confinement animal agricultural systems have increased rapidly over the past decade, though precision technology solutions for pastured livestock remain limited. There are a number of reasons for this limited expansion of technologies for pastured animals, including networking availability and reliability, power requirements, and expense, among others. The objective of this work was to demonstrate a rapidly deployable long-range radio (LoRa) based, low-cost sensor suite that can be used to track location and activity of pastured livestock. The sensor is comprised of an inexpensive Arduino-compatible microprocessor, a generic MPU-9250 motion sensor which contains a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis magnetometer, and a 3-axis gyroscope, a generic GPS receiver, and a RFM95W generic LoRa radio. The microprocessor can be programmed flexibly using the open source Arduino IDE software to adjust the frequency of sampling, the data packet to send, and what conditions are needed to operate. The LoRa radio transmits to a Dragino LoRa gateway which can also be flexibly programmed through the Arduino IDE software to send data to local storage or, in cases where a web or cellular connection is available, to cloud storage. The sensor was powered using a USB cord connected to a 3,350 mAh lithium-ion battery pack. The Dragino gateway was programmed to upload data to the ThingSpeak IoT application programming interface for data storage, handling, and visualization. Evaluations showed minimal benefit associated with reducing sampling frequency as a strategy to preserve battery life. Packet loss ranged from 40% to 60%. In a 3 d evaluation on pastured sheep, the sensor suite was able to report GPS locations, inertial sensor readings, and temperature. Preliminary demonstrations of our system are satisfactory to detect animal location based on GPS data in real-time. This system has clear utility as a lower-cost strategy to deploy flexible, useful precision technologies for pasture-based livestock species.en
dc.description.versionPublished versionen
dc.format.extent9 pagesen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1093/tas/txab010en
dc.identifier.issue2en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/104922en
dc.identifier.volume5en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherOxford University Pressen
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/en
dc.subjectconnectivityen
dc.subjectextensive systemen
dc.subjectintensive systemen
dc.subjectLoRaen
dc.subjectnetworkingen
dc.subjectprecision technologyen
dc.subjectsensoren
dc.titleA LoRa sensor network for monitoring pastured livestock location and activityen
dc.title.serialTranslational Animal Scienceen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
txab010.pdf
Size:
608.54 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Published version
Download

Collections

Open Access Subvention Fund Articles
Scholarly Works, School of Animal Sciences