Establishing and testing a Taggle® real-time autonomous spatial livestock monitoring system

Researchers have been using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) collars to monitor the behaviour and landscape utilisation of livestock for over a decade. In recent years there has been a growing interest from producers in the potential of Autonomous Spatial Livestock Monitoring (ASLM) systems to enable improved animal management (Trotter, 2011). However, GPS collars are largely considered an impractical solution for commercial grazing systems and the current costs associated with using these devices is thought to be prohibitive by most producers. The Taggle® system provides an ear-tag form factor on-animal device at a much lower cost than currently available ASLM technologies. Unlike GNSS devices which receive radio signals from orbiting satellites the Taggle® ear-tag emits a radio signal which is recorded by a number of stationary receivers. In a similar way to GNSS the time of flight of the signal is used to triangulate the position of the ear-tag. In 2011 the University of New England Precision Agriculture Research Group and Taggle Pty Ltd established a research collaboration to investigate the potential for this system to provide useful information for graziers.