Yee-ha, round 鈥檈m up cowboy. Meet Swagbot, the newest member of Australia鈥檚 farm robot fleet.
Swagbot can聽herd cows, tow heavy trailers, and traverse rugged terrain and聽has been designed to manage livestock on Australia鈥檚 vast聽sheep and cattle stations, which are often remote and聽difficult to access.
A trial which began last month has confirmed that SwagBot is able to herd cattle, and can navigate聽its way around ditches,聽logs, swamps, and聽other features of a typical farm landscape.
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The next step will be to teach the robot how to identify animals that are sick or injured, says of the University of Sydney, who is leading the trial.
鈥淭he trial has been very successful so far, so it鈥檚 given us the confidence to move to the next phase,鈥� he says.
His team is planning to fit the robot with temperature and motion sensors to detect changes in body temperature and walking gait, as well as colour and shape sensors to make sure the animals have enough pasture to graze on.
鈥淥ver the next few months, we鈥檒l be looking at what algorithms we need to put together to allow the animal monitoring,鈥澛爃e says.
The researchers have previously shown that farm robots can be used to , but SwagBot will be the first in the world to monitor the health of livestock.
