Intelligent Animal Monitoring And Tracking
Project summary
The main objective of this project, initiated by alumna Oluwasefunmi Arogundade and her team members, is the design, implementation and adoption of an IOT based device (NIMTrack) that tracks and monitors small and large animals on free range and in experimental farms.
Traditionally, small and medium livestock farmers track their livestock by observing the animal’s frequent places and former tracks. This consumes a lot of time and mostly the track can be misleading. Presently, most animal research being conducted is done with the animals kept in a pen, this defeats the purpose of free-range research results because of lack of intelligent animal tracking and management services based on GPS/GSM. However, NIMTrack will help farmers to monitor their animals from remote distances. The location of the animals can provide sufficient data for the farmer to know the status of the livestock, especially when they are left alone to range freely.
NIMTrack is used to locate animals that fail to return to the pen and to prevent their loss or theft. Knowing the locations of individual animal is important for ease of relocation to the appropriate place, so that they can be preserved and conserved. On a mobile phone, the proposed system will provide real-time geo-information of the animals such as current location, movement pattern, setting up of electronic fence, notification when in safe or alarm region, etc.
The demand for livestock tracking mechanisms has increased substantially in recent years. Presently in Nigeria, there is lack of studies in the area of animal tracking and pastoral management systems. There are many kinds of applications of RFID, GPS, and sensors. For example, RFIDs can be used to identify and track persons or animals, physical distribution, access controls, etc. GPS is applied to many kinds of applications including car navigation systems, health, military and home.
As members: Contact Oluwasefunmi Arogundade or Adebayo Adewumi Abayomi-Alli for further information on the project.
