Animal management systems

Abstract

A system for controlling and monitoring animals, including control devices (10) that are fittable to the animals and arranged for communication with one another. Each control device (10) includes means for determining the position of an animal relative to a second animal, means for determining the distance between the two animals, and means for determining movement of the animals relative to one another. The system also includes stimulus application devices (12) arranged for selective application of a stimulus to an animal based on the relative position, distance and / or movement of the animals.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]This invention relates generally to the field of electronically controlling and monitoring animals.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Traditionally, physical fences have been used to contain livestock within defined areas. More recently, virtual fencing devices have been described for attachment to animals. Generally, these devices use the application of auditory and / or electrical stimuli to control the spatial location of the animal.[0003]A number of inventions have addressed the issue of virtual fencing in general, but each of these devices rely on the presence of a central controller to determine, for example, the location of the animal, the location of virtual boundaries, when to apply and stop applying stimuli, etc. While these devices work satisfactorily, they are limited by inherencies of the detector devices used, eg the range of a GPS satellite network, locations of buried wires, location of a central transmitter and / or receiver, etc.[0004]U.S. Pat...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013]The control devices may incorporate additional processor and data storage functionality as well as additional sensor devices to allow monitoring and controlling behaviour (or other environmental interaction indicators) of one or more animals as a function of these other indicators, for example an expanded system in which the control devices are programmed with animal identification data of the animal to which the device is fitted, thereby allowing implementation of a more complex set of rules upon which selective stimuli application will be based, as is explained in more detail below.

[0029]This then provides the advantage of allowing information as to a specific animal's behaviour to be sampled and stored as required.

Problems solved by technology

While these devices work satisfactorily, they are limited by inherencies of the detector devices used, eg the range of a GPS satellite network, locations of buried wires, location of a central transmitter and / or receiver, etc.

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