Livestock monitoring

The scope of this UC3 is to evaluate the risks and the advantages to exploit drones for cattle and sheep monitoring in grassland-based systems, leading to the improvement of the life quality of the farmers. Based on existing and recent UAVs technologies, they will be deployed in 2 pilot areas (farms) including 2 species and 3 types of grasslands. Specifically, the first pilot area concerns a beef cattle herd in pastures low-lands, whereas the second pilot area involves a sheep flock in a pastoral system within 3 types of grasslands (low-lands pastures, woody rangelands, summer mountain rangelands). The UAVs (drones) will be deployed as an “eye-in-the-sky” service, allowing farmers and sheepherders to monitor their livestock with less effort. Furthermore, the available information obtained with the deployment of drones provide a significantly larger variety of parameters for the livestock, in comparison with the conventional ground inspections, such as the precise detection of the number and position of animals, their access to water and their health and welfare levels. The main target of UC3 is not the replacement of farmers with UAVs, but to facilitate the livestock monitoring, decreasing the required effort from the farmers and enhancing the efficiency of the overall livestock activity.