Where we are with the technology
In 2014, it was estimated that on a cow fully-equipped, housed in a farm where all available technology at this time was available, more than 30 different kinds of information could be recorded.
Records resulted in values registered per second, minute, hour... or mean values, frequencies...
It is highly probable that new variables will be monitored in the future such as mental status of the animal. This means that scientists, engineers, farmers... will have to interact more and more with the intelligence of the animal.
Fully automated and continuous monitoring is possible: it is possible to record 25 images and 20 000 sound samples per second and this, 24 h a day and 7 days a week ! All this information creates new « Sensor Data » [or more generally, « Big Data »(1)], and this information needs to be useful !!!
All this information has to be transformed and put together, to create added value for the farmer and meanwhile, improve animal welfare, animal health and environmental input. It has to be validated thanks to a close interaction between the “animal people and the “technology people”.
Transformation data into valuable information (labelling and modeling) is time consuming and costly, but very important !!!
(1) According to IBM company , in 2012, 2,5 exabytes of unit data (2,5×1018) were created every day ! ("IBM What is big data? — Bringing big data to the enterprise". www.ibm.com. Retrieved 2013-08-26.)
