Do you know…

For the last several years the traditional ear-tag is transformed to a fully load ultra-low power system that measures the cow and send it to the back office. Therefor the farmer can see if the cow is healthy, sick or on-heat. Is she eating enough, and how many hours is she in sleep. 

There are different technologies used in the tag, the basis is the Ambiq lowest power micro controller in the market, an Apollo3 or Apollo4 that is making sure the battery life is up to 6 ~ 8 years or even longer. These are the brains of the system. It communicate with a RFID unit that is connected to the RFID-readers from Elatec to see if a cow is entering a milk-robot.

An other solution is a ToF (Time of Flight) technology from Nanotron, an Inpixon company to follow an animal with an accuracy of a few meters. This is not only for location, but more used for activity and sleep phases. A high accurate crystal oscillator of Raltron Electronics will support the stability of the RF communication. And the antennas of Summit Electronics for optimal reach.

There are also technologies that uses GNSS, so a very small Quectel GPS unit can be a good solution.

And when LoRa is a good technology, for example when animals are moving around on rural areas without good coverage, a LoRa private network is perfect for that. We have the lowest power modules from Northern Mechatronics. In combination with a 6-axis motion sensor from CEVA it’s perfect for battery management. When there is no activity for a while, the RF portion can be switched off to safe power.

A pressure sensor from Goertek Electronics helps determine if a cow is standing or lying on the floor. The temperature sensors helps the understanding of the overall health.