Scientists from the University of Sydney have created an AI-powered robot to make cattle farming in Australia more efficient and sustainable. "Swagbot" uses sensors and in-built intelligence to maximize herd and pasture health.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Meet Swagbot, Australia's newest and brightest cattle herder.
00:08The AI-powered robot was created by researchers at the University of Sydney
00:12with the aim of making cattle farming more efficient and sustainable.
00:20The machine autonomously analyses the plant health, type and density of fields
00:25and directs cows to the most nutritious areas.
00:28Once the animals, once the cattle are used to the robot, they will follow the robot around.
00:33And so if you move to certain parts of the pasture, the animals will follow through
00:37and if you stop, then they'll stop and they can graze that particular part.
00:43This avoids overgrazing and preserves the soil's nutrition,
00:47which in turn supports plant health and livestock capacity.
00:50The machine also helps farmers monitor the health of their cattle.
00:54It senses, assessing the animal's movements to create a unique profile for each member of the herd.
01:00These key functions allow farmers to make better use of their resources,
01:04which is increasingly in short supply, to improve productivity and meet global demand.
01:10It allows us to assess our paddocks in real time in a much more detailed way than what you can now,
01:14particularly if they start bringing in real-time measurement of things like nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus.
01:20The population of the world is growing and we have the same amount of land to feed that population
01:27and so maximising how much food we deliver for the same amount of imports,
01:31even less in terms of imports, is what's important.
01:34And the only way we can do that is with precision agriculture.
01:38The precision of the technology also makes cattle farming more environmentally friendly.
01:43So using less chemicals, using less water,
01:46both of those things really lend themselves towards robotics.
01:53Swagbot may prove to be a game changer for a major beef exporter like Australia,
01:57which faces a hot and dry climate.
02:01And it's just the beginning.
02:03Amid a growing trend of robotics being developed for the agriculture industry,
02:07scientists are confident there will soon be more robots like this one on farms in Australia and around the world.
02:13Dolphine Chen and Rosie Grenninger for Taiwan Plus.