Behaviour-based Intelligent Power Management of the eShepherd Virtual Fencing Collar for Cattle

Moving livestock from one location to another is a tedious but necessary task in many farmland environments. Agersens, an agri-tech startup, is launching eShepherd: a world first autonomous shepherd based on virtual fencing technology. This IoT device enables farmers to geo-fence, move and monitor their cattle using their smartphone or tablet device. eShepherd uses Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology to localise livestock relative to a virtual fence boundary, and subsequently apply control signals based on shepherding decisions. The critical barrier to long-term operation of the collar is power management, as GNSS/GPS-based localisation consumes excessive power during continuous operation. This paper proposes an intelligent power management of eShepherd collars, based on animal behaviour classification and adaptive GPS sampling. Simulations derived from field trial data confirm significant reductions in position observations are achievable, while maintaining localisation of the animal relative to the boundary, and without unobserved boundary crossings.