Solar-powered sensor for continuous monitoring of livestock position

Abstract

Advances in animal tracking technology allow for improvement in farm resource management, animal welfare and the possibility of an overall reduction in running costs. We describe a light-weight solar-powered position sensor tag for livestock and a corresponding base station. The livestock ear tag weighs less than 40g and utilises 868MHz SRD/ISM frequency band for telemetry. This provides configurable wireless connection for data retrieval triggered by a base station, reducing the overall power consumption of the tags. Data transmission range is 2.4km line of sight and 1km typical. Static testing of the position sensor yields a circular error probable of 6 ±2 metres.