The Canadian government is investing in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that will sweep down into fields, use sophisticated cameras to scope landscapes and radio frequencies to track their targets — but the commands will be in the hands of cattle ranchers.
The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council awarded a Thompson Rivers University in B.C. a grant of $663,940 over the next three years to fund the development of UAVs for precision cattle ranching, or individually monitoring each cow for maximum yield.
John Church, an associate professor of natural resource science at Thompson Rivers University is leading what he calls the “revolutionary” research into cattle farming.
“(Cattle ranching) is done by guess and by golly; it’s more of an art than a science,” Church, a fourth-generation cattle rancher himself, said. “When UAVs are not being used for killing people, they have unlimited potential to transform this industry.”
In partnership with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Church and a team of researchers hope to design UAVs to monitor plant growth and water quality on pastures using near-infrared, multi-spectrum cameras attached to the drones. Higher-quality feed in the pastures will lead to higher-quality beef.
Thermal cameras in the drones can also spot cattle from the air — even hidden beneath a forest canopy, he said. In the future, Church envisions drones being able to target individual weeds and spray a treatment targeting each one, not an entire pasture.
The drones can also be used to herd cattle, Church said, but the process hasn’t been perfected and drones are better used for monitoring.
“The cattle are afraid of the drone and want to run away… but if you don’t chase them with it, they tolerate the UAVs exceptionally well,” Church said. “I’ve been within eight metres. As soon as they feel the wind from the propellers, they’ll move.”
Church will also look into building specialized antennas to the UAVs that would allow them to detect radio frequencies from unique tags attached to each cow. Since the mad cow disease scare, Church said, each cow is required to have a radio tag.
By using the drone and its antenna to follow the signals to a location near its bovine target, ranchers could then use the antenna attached to the drone to find them from 12 metres away. Ranchers can then use the UAV’s GPS system to get the precise location of cattle. This could help them track down lost cattle and even help them understand whether one of the herd has been killed by a predator in the wild.
“I can have cowboys on the ground with GPS units and they can type the GPS code into their handheld and ride right to them,” he said.
Most current ranchers are “pushing 60 years old,” Church said, so the drones may be more beneficial to the millennial ranchers who will take over in a few years. It helps, he said, that they’ve “played a fair amount of Xbox.”
“They’re really tremendous at working the controls in the air,” he said.
For his great-great-grandfather, the first in the line of ranchers in Church’s family, the idea may have been more difficult to adapt to.
“Maybe even 10 years ago or 20 years ago, the technology used wouldn’t be a big surprise,” Church said. “I think my great-great-great grandfather would be completely blown away by drones. It would be akin to going to the moon.”
