Cyborg Cows Herd Themselves
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Thursday, 12 of June , 2008 at 1:28 am
Perhaps I was a bit hasty when I suggested that in the future, cows will be herded by autonomous robot helicopters. Or rather, I wasn’t being optimistic enough about the progress of cybernetics. The USDA and MIT have teamed up to create a cow monitoring and control system that’s basically a glorified iPod, complete with a “doughnut-shaped stereo headset worn over each ear” by the cow. The cowPods are actually better than their human counterparts in several ways: they’re solar powered, have integrated WiFi and GPS, and even come with magnetometers and accelerometers to “record the body orientation and configuration and the animal.”
The way the cowPod works is with simple positive and negative reinforcement. To round up the cows, the cowPods play “familiar “gathering songs” sung by cowboys during manual round-ups,” which I guess they associate with herding, although for me, cowboy music would be more negative stimulation. If the cows wander outside of a designated GPS area, the cowPods can play annoying or irritating music in one ear or another to direct them back to where they’re supposed to be, or (if necessary) deliver mild electric shocks.
It sounds like it could be an effective system if the cows decide to pay attention to it and can tolerate wearing headphones. I assume some serious research is going to have to be done to figure out what exactly cows prefer when it comes to grazing music… Since Mozart increases milk production, that might be a good place to start.
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Category: Cybernetics
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