Written by Cordelia Su
CANBERRA (Reuters) – With four wheels and bright red paint, SwagBot is no ordinary cow.
But researchers at the University of Sydney say the autonomous robot is on its way to becoming the world’s first “smart cow”, which could make cattle farming more efficient and environmentally friendly.
SwagBot was first launched in 2016 as a simple herding robot that could navigate rough terrain and has been updated with sensors, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning systems.
The battery-powered SwagBot can now determine pasture health, type, and density and monitor livestock health.
This information is then used to autonomously herd cattle to the best pastures and move them before the land is overgrazed and the soil degrades. Data can also be fed back to farmers.
“Once the cows get used to the robot, they start following it,” said Sarah Scalier, professor of robotics and intelligent systems at the University of Sydney, and the team that developed SwagBot.
“We want to move the animals to the right areas of pasture where there’s good protein and good carbohydrates,” he says. “We want to be able to do that in a very fluid way without putting up fences.”
Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of beef, with around 30 million cattle living on vast tracts of land that are often dry and have poor pasture.
Farmers are constantly evaluating how many animals they can keep on their land, but many farmers have little control over where their animals graze within large enclosed areas. Overgrazing can lead to soil degradation and a decline in plant and animal populations.
“This (SwagBot) allows us to assess fields in a much more detailed way in real time,” said part-time farmer Erin O’Neill, who attended a recent robot demonstration in a field in Sydney’s north. he said.
“This allows us to know which parts of the grass are most nutritious, especially if you have pregnant cows like we do and you want high-quality grass to help them through their pregnancy. If you need to, yes,” she said.
SwagBot, which is still in development, is part of the agricultural industry’s trend toward robotization that could make production more efficient and less dependent on workers in remote and hard-to-find places like Australia.
(Reporting by Cordelia Hsu; Editing by Peter Hobson and Lincoln Feast)
