The future of sheep herding?

[SkeyeSearch3r]

I would be interested to hear members experiences using drones in stock control, herding, or part of a traditional animal/human team e.g. sheepdog, shepherd + drone, SAR dog, handler + drone team....

enjoy the cartoon/humor

 

[N017RW]

I voted yes cause they are already used in various ways on the 'ranch'.

 

[alokbhargava]

Technically all this is possible and would be more effective if we get longer battery life or tethered drones.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[Quamera]

I would be interested to hear members experiences using drones in stock control, herding, or part of a traditional animal/human team e.g. sheepdog, shepherd + drone, SAR dog, handler + drone team....

enjoy the cartoon/humor
View attachment 74115

The primary reason I purchased my P4 was for stock (cattle and goats) monitoring and checking water points. Unfortunately it hasn't worked out quite as well as planned. Although it does look very open from 50 to 100m up the animals are very hard to see in timbered country and the trees reduce my range from thousands of metres to just hundreds.

I definitely need to practice more and hopefully my technique will improve with experience. I did take off today from a dam bank with about 1000m of cropping country in front of me before I started flying over timber and the P4 easily reached 2000 metres but the sun was so bright I couldn't see any detail on the screen so that was another fail.

Ideally I would put a pair of antennae on the house and fly all missions from there but that involves a fair bit of cost and setting up and I am not going there just yet.

As for actually moving a mob of stock with drone assistance, at 30m to 50m height they certainly know its there and move away from the noise. If you were on foot or an ATV the trick would be to have a "wand" that you pointed or waved in the direction required and the AC would go there as opposed to the conventional controller. In that way it would be like an aerial dog although you would need a ready supply of charged batteries and there would be times that the obstacle avoidance would cop a bit of a workout!!

There would also be a place for AI in learning what a mob of animals looked like and the best position to be in to move them in the direction required with minimal operator assistance.

 

[N017RW]

Technically all this is possible and would be more effective if we get longer battery life or tethered drones.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

How do you prevent fouling or snagging the tether?
Sounds a bit cumbersome and the added weight is also a concern.
This does not sound feasible.
I'm sure you can find videos of such experimental tests and such. Do you have info on such systems being developed?

 

[SkeyeSearch3r]

One thing I am working on designing [ to be passed on to practical builders,engineers, programmers and developers ] is the draft outline of a system to get round such problems.

The obvious answer is a series of relay stations which may be spaced around the boundary of the stock-control area : some ranches have electric perimeter fences; further relay pylons maybe needed inside the area , and spaced tighter in areas of difficult terrain [e.g. canyons, valleys, narrow defiles.

Relay stations might be powered through sunken, piped electrical supply [safest]; through overhead wires[risk of tornado/weather damage] to generators, or, be connected to wind generators and solar power units.

technology already exists to run wifi/internet signals through domestic powerlines within a property, or via plug-in booster units. [ consider 'spy technology' which used to pick up subtle pulses caused by the EM field of electrical equipment inducing current in wires, allowing keyboard strikes etc to be 'picked up' - the principal can be used practically and effectively]

Mobile phone technology already defines areas in terms of cells -hexagonal tiles and triangulation; a variety of mapmaking software also uses the hex tile tessellation system.

Relay towers/pylons should also be recharging points/ battery swap units. ...the mechanics involve

At the moment drone technology design places cameras centrally....however, it would be more sensible for batteries to be loaded or ejected [swapped out]from a central core, or for drones to have a central hollow centre....[consider the hollow doughnut or toroid shape] this centre could then 'fit' onto a conic or cylindrical "base spike" keeping the drone locked and stable, as well as providing contact terminals for recharging onboard batteries and capacitors ....

in this way the maximum best area coverable [across cells] may be defined by
the radius of flight possible of a drone from takeoff/charge-point, including return journey AND some time in operation/manoeuvres, including waypoints ....

when relay stations are made waypoints for returning-to-base-when-battery-low/signal lost in order that a drone may be recharged, that area and range can be extended; the Homebase network/computer infrastructure allowing for radio transmission/ control from any pylon...provided such can be 'locked' to each drone used....
interesting challenges logistically, security encryption wise, hardware and program software wise. . .

[preliminary thoughts]

 

[Quamera]

How do you prevent fouling or snagging the tether?
Sounds a bit cumbersome and the added weight is also a concern.
This does not sound feasible.
I'm sure you can find videos of such experimental tests and such. Do you have info on such systems being developed?

IMO the only purpose of a physical tether would be for power and that would be better executed with a "dock", either a pole or platform fitted to a ute, ATV or other vehicle where the UAV could return for charging (and a rest). SkeyeSearch3r mentioned a network of relay stations for recharging, a little bit capital intensive but might be a possibility in some situations.

 

[SkeyeSearch3r]

IMO the only purpose of a physical tether would be for power and that would be better executed with a "dock", either a pole or platform fitted to a ute, ATV or other vehicle where the UAV could return for charging (and a rest). SkeyeSearch3r mentioned a network of relay stations for recharging, a little bit capital intensive but might be a possibility in some situations.

Thanks Quamera...I couldn't think of the term "dock": precisely what I have in mind with relay/charging stations.

i'm part owner of a [disused] farm...approx. 42-44 acres mixed arable/dairy/small holding [no sheep]. The dairy herd used to make its own way to the milk shed come milking time, apparently, in my grandfather's day.[there is now a motorway dividing the farm (no cows) causing problems]

much depends on economies of scale and usage reasons. For example, Darpa I think, is trying out a pocket, tethered minidrone for soldiers [sees round corners, scopes out risks] erfectly sensible. However, consider your several hundred acre ranch....entirely different matter; plus...do you use the drone for locating your herd in open grazing? dropping off feed/ triggering trough filling? actual herding up manoeuvres? search-and-rescue [stray sheep, lost hiker?] ??

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1380410/A-cell-tower-suitcase-Phone-company-sells-portable-wireless-disaster-zone-emergencies.html for dedicated SAR at $15,000-$45,000 is one option for fully mobile temporary cellphone tower [plus satellite phones]... but beyond most budgets of most RT/drone enthusiasts.

I buy most my drones from China - secondary control unit motherboards, receiver boards, transmitter boards /other parts are relatively cheap .[ I like to have spares for emergencies, manufacturers ditch drone lines regularly after a run of a couple of years]. Models typically use between 3.7 to approx 12 volts power... rechargeable batteries/ rechargers are easy to come by, but solar-cell units may be costly [e.g. Solar Power Charger Best Deals + Online Shopping | GearBest.com ] and, a gizmo to regulate/normalise the charge [create a steady rate and quality] is advantageous.

By far the greatest strain on any flying vehicle is the weight of its batteries....hence docking systems are ideal, as auto-mechanical swap-out of battery cartridges increases error/failure, is cumbersome and engineering intensive.

as you can see, with transmitter/receiver boards and control boards costing £10-20 or less cost is not necessarily capital intensive. ranches using electrical fencing tend to wire at 12-24volts [1-2 car batteries equivalent]

existing software can map docks/relays as GPS waypoints; however to get a drone to evaluate it is quicker/safer to reroute to an alternate base/charging station will require serious programming. in the case of mobile stations, how exactly a drone might orientate to it and return...any bright ideas anyone?

portable MYFI units are useful, but have limited range, and do not work in signal shadow/poor mobile phone signal coverage. e.g. under cliffs, in valleys, behind hills, or signal black-spots.

happy, and safe flying folks!

#furtherfood4thought

 

[SkeyeSearch3r]

The primary reason I purchased my P4 was for stock (cattle and goats) monitoring and checking water points. Unfortunately it hasn't worked out quite as well as planned. Although it does look very open from 50 to 100m up the animals are very hard to see in timbered country and the trees reduce my range from thousands of metres to just hundreds.

I definitely need to practice more and hopefully my technique will improve with experience. I did take off today from a dam bank with about 1000m of cropping country in front of me before I started flying over timber and the P4 easily reached 2000 metres but the sun was so bright I couldn't see any detail on the screen so that was another fail.

Ideally I would put a pair of antennae on the house and fly all missions from there but that involves a fair bit of cost and setting up and I am not going there just yet.

As for actually moving a mob of stock with drone assistance, at 30m to 50m height they certainly know its there and move away from the noise. If you were on foot or an ATV the trick would be to have a "wand" that you pointed or waved in the direction required and the AC would go there as opposed to the conventional controller. In that way it would be like an aerial dog although you would need a ready supply of charged batteries and there would be times that the obstacle avoidance would cop a bit of a workout!!

There would also be a place for AI in learning what a mob of animals looked like and the best position to be in to move them in the direction required with minimal operator assistance.

thanks.....this is the type of input/data i'm looking for... *thumbs up*

 

[Quamera]

Thanks Quamera...I couldn't think of the term "dock": precisely what I have in mind with relay/charging stations.

i'm part owner of a [disused] farm...approx. 42-44 acres mixed arable/dairy/small holding [no sheep]. The dairy herd used to make its own way to the milk shed come milking time, apparently, in my grandfather's day.[there is now a motorway dividing the farm (no cows) causing problems]

much depends on economies of scale and usage reasons. For example, Darpa I think, is trying out a pocket, tethered minidrone for soldiers [sees round corners, scopes out risks] erfectly sensible. However, consider your several hundred acre ranch....entirely different matter; plus...do you use the drone for locating your herd in open grazing? dropping off feed/ triggering trough filling? actual herding up manoeuvres? search-and-rescue [stray sheep, lost hiker?] ??

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1380410/A-cell-tower-suitcase-Phone-company-sells-portable-wireless-disaster-zone-emergencies.html for dedicated SAR at $15,000-$45,000 is one option for fully mobile temporary cellphone tower [plus satellite phones]... but beyond most budgets of most RT/drone enthusiasts.

I buy most my drones from China - secondary control unit motherboards, receiver boards, transmitter boards /other parts are relatively cheap .[ I like to have spares for emergencies, manufacturers ditch drone lines regularly after a run of a couple of years]. Models typically use between 3.7 to approx 12 volts power... rechargeable batteries/ rechargers are easy to come by, but solar-cell units may be costly [e.g. Solar Power Charger Best Deals + Online Shopping | GearBest.com ] and, a gizmo to regulate/normalise the charge [create a steady rate and quality] is advantageous.

By far the greatest strain on any flying vehicle is the weight of its batteries....hence docking systems are ideal, as auto-mechanical swap-out of battery cartridges increases error/failure, is cumbersome and engineering intensive.

as you can see, with transmitter/receiver boards and control boards costing £10-20 or less cost is not necessarily capital intensive. ranches using electrical fencing tend to wire at 12-24volts [1-2 car batteries equivalent]

existing software can map docks/relays as GPS waypoints; however to get a drone to evaluate it is quicker/safer to reroute to an alternate base/charging station will require serious programming. in the case of mobile stations, how exactly a drone might orientate to it and return...any bright ideas anyone?

portable MYFI units are useful, but have limited range, and do not work in signal shadow/poor mobile phone signal coverage. e.g. under cliffs, in valleys, behind hills, or signal black-spots.

happy, and safe flying folks!

#furtherfood4thought

We have 500 to 1000 acre (200 to 400 Ha) paddocks of which areas are heavily timbered. When mustering it is time consuming to thoroughly search the whole paddock and my plan was to aerially search and communicate to the bikes where the pockets of animals were then follow the muster to ensure all animals were collected. It hasn't worked out too well yet but I will keep trying. Big cattle properties have been doing that for decades with choppers.

The daily check of watering points is essential in 40C (104F) heat and that can easily be done by air but unfortunately most of ours are more than 2km from the house and currently out of range of my P4 because of the timber reducing the signal strength. I may have to invest in some aerial mods to make that work.

Feeding, even trace elements, would be entirely impractical for the foreseeable future. Watering points are always full via float valves, no need for turning on or off.

Herding has potential except that most operations are measured in hours not minutes so at present it would be just on the periphery to save the bikes going into dense scrub or a long distance for some stragglers.

Autonomous UAV mustering would require some serious AI computing hardware plus a network of charging docks and I don't really see that as practical in the foreseeable future. I would like to see an aerial "dog" controlled by a wand with an ATV mounted charging dock in the next decade, I would put my hand up for one of them!!

 

[SkeyeSearch3r]

The primary reason I purchased my P4 was for stock (cattle and goats) monitoring and checking water points. Unfortunately it hasn't worked out quite as well as planned. Although it does look very open from 50 to 100m up the animals are very hard to see in timbered country and the trees reduce my range from thousands of metres to just hundreds.

I definitely need to practice more and hopefully my technique will improve with experience. I did take off today from a dam bank with about 1000m of cropping country in front of me before I started flying over timber and the P4 easily reached 2000 metres but the sun was so bright I couldn't see any detail on the screen so that was another fail.

Ideally I would put a pair of antennae on the house and fly all missions from there but that involves a fair bit of cost and setting up and I am not going there just yet.

As for actually moving a mob of stock with drone assistance, at 30m to 50m height they certainly know its there and move away from the noise. If you were on foot or an ATV the trick would be to have a "wand" that you pointed or waved in the direction required and the AC would go there as opposed to the conventional controller. In that way it would be like an aerial dog although you would need a ready supply of charged batteries and there would be times that the obstacle avoidance would cop a bit of a workout!!

There would also be a place for AI in learning what a mob of animals looked like and the best position to be in to move them in the direction required with minimal operator assistance.

Quamera, I have dark lenses to put on my P3, and a lens cover to shade the aperture of the camera from the sun... both might probably work on the P4, but might be a partial answer for the glare issue /sun on ground whiting out picture; equally, adjusting angle and direction of camera could help [ depending on time of day]. I think you can find similar accessories easily on e-bay etc. ...Try them and let me know if it works for you.

Definitely better antennas can help: elsewhere in the forum are one or two posts on 'boosters' people have used... looking into them myself.
At 30-50 meters, you are likely to run into trees fouling the flight [depending on landscape/forest features] but its encouraging stock react to the drones presence. Love the idea of an 'aerial dog'. What speed would it have to travel to effectively intersect and turn back cattle? Goats are a more difficult matter, i imagine: prone to scatter, highly curious and usually quite agile.

yes, batteries are a problem, as energy is expended to keep the quadcopter/drone airborne.... I have been wondering about helium balloons to provide 'lift' so less energy is expended defying gravity. Here is a link about helium airships for acrobatic use....

I was stunned at how manouvreable they are though limited to mostly breezeless good weather. . . . The size alone ought to scare the cattle . . .

 

[N017RW]

Balloons are prone to wind with such large profiles.
Maybe a hybrid fixed wing/MR such as the latest Amazon proto.

 

[SkeyeSearch3r]

Technically all this is possible and would be more effective if we get longer battery life or tethered drones.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

alokbhargava.... what if we were to create drone/helium airship hybrids? weight of a' bandera 'of batteries could be offset by lift via helium? Size of body needed would allow for solar panels[to keep batteries charged and provide power for the ballast system];an electric system to heat-sink or warm up could be 3Dprinted, along with a vaporisation/mist system to extract water from air as ballast... solid , honeycombed carbon fibre epoxy shell could also be printed -using technology developed recently inHarvard/Mit , Carbon-fiber epoxy honeycombs mimic the material performance of balsa wood | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences https://phys.org/news/2014-06-carbon-fiber-epoxy-honeycombs-mimic-material.html ....

provided lift was almost equal to weight pulling down ...the craft would not so readily float off and power consumption for flight would be little. Helium could be sealed inside chambers, and within a membrane of pressurised fluid- think in terms of a submarine - to avoid the helium expanding and bursting. Perhaps even a bladder of normal air which could be compressed by the water system, to vary buoyancy.

what are your thoughts?

 

[SkeyeSearch3r]

Balloons are prone to wind with such large profiles.
Maybe a hybrid fixed wing/MR such as the latest Amazon proto.

...we are thinking on similar lines.e. just because you use helium doesn't mean you have to have a barrage balloon shape ... Lockheed Martin also have some interesting aerial projects worth looking at

 

[busaboy101]

Works good for rounding up the donkeys.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[Quamera]

Quamera, I have dark lenses to put on my P3, and a lens cover to shade the aperture of the camera from the sun... both might probably work on the P4, but might be a partial answer for the glare issue /sun on ground whiting out picture; equally, adjusting angle and direction of camera could help [ depending on time of day]. I think you can find similar accessories easily on e-bay etc. ...Try them and let me know if it works for you.

Definitely better antennas can help: elsewhere in the forum are one or two posts on 'boosters' people have used... looking into them myself.
At 30-50 meters, you are likely to run into trees fouling the flight [depending on landscape/forest features] but its encouraging stock react to the drones presence. Love the idea of an 'aerial dog'. What speed would it have to travel to effectively intersect and turn back cattle? Goats are a more difficult matter, i imagine: prone to scatter, highly curious and usually quite agile.

yes, batteries are a problem, as energy is expended to keep the quadcopter/drone airborne.... I have been wondering about helium balloons to provide 'lift' so less energy is expended defying gravity. Here is a link about helium airships for acrobatic use....

I was stunned at how manouvreable they are though limited to mostly breezeless good weather. . . . The size alone ought to scare the cattle . . .

I think I will start with a bit more practice, gain some experience with camera angles and understand the range limitations a little better then I should be able to give some more positive feedback on the finding and mustering livestock scenario.

Yes there is certainly no shortage of antenna and amp threads here, one of them runs over 70 pages but I think I will stay stock for a little while just to gain a thorough understanding of what I can and can't do.

The country is very flat here and I have only found 2 eucalypts above 30m so far so the 30 to 50m range is fairly safe. It would be handy to create my own "NFZ" around the biggest trees but for the moment if I have a lapse of concentration I will just rely on DJIs OA.

Our animals, both sheep and goats are fairly quiet so the Phantom would have no trouble "heading off" any animal that desired to go in a different direction than you wanted them to. In any case domestic animals (and most ferals too) can often start with a fair turn of speed but soon tire and are mentally beaten when they realize that you have stayed with them while they thought they were escaping!

A balloon or similar to support most of the UAVs weight is an excellent solution to the short battery life problem. Yes maneuverability will be sacrificed and top speed will take a bath but we don't have a lot of wind and it means a battery could last for hours.

 

[Richard R]

The daily check of watering points is essential in 40C (104F) heat and that can easily be done by air but unfortunately most of ours are more than 2km from the house and currently out of range of my P4 because of the timber reducing the signal strength. I may have to invest in some aerial mods to make that work.

Situations like this are why apps like Litchi have autonomous mission capabilities. set up your waypoint over the watering point and fly the mission to go there, take some pictures and return. Not 'realtime' but I doubt that water level would change much is the few minutes it would take to transfer the pictures to your laptop or tablet. Depending on how close other water points are, you might even be able to get 2 or more per flight.

 

[Helihover]

Looks like a lot of ranchers are starting to implement drones into the routine. This stuff is cool, I love RC aircraft and one of my life long dreams has been to raise cattle....