BBC: RTLS The technology tracking cows to make them happy
Lucky, lucky cows. They too can bathe in the same 6.35GHz frequencies as students have been recently at West Cheshire College, a 14-19 college in the UK. But the ultra wideband (UWB) RFID used by the cows – supplied by Zebra Technologies, the same company that supplied the college – has more refined specifications than the UWB RFID the kids carried.
As the students at West Cheshire College (WCC) were the first “live” recipients of the Zebra’s RFID Dart, their use of the real time location system since 2010 seems to have helped hone Zebra’s UWB RFID technology even further for the benefits of livestock tracking.
Welcome to “CowView” and its happy cows:
| Cow herds UWB RFID Tags | Students UWB RFID Tags |
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Monitor behavior i.e. lying down, standing up
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Can predict when in heat
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6-10 days for RFID system to learn behavior
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| Alerts for illness | |
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Management alerts when cows behavior is different
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| Ultra wideband RFID Real Time Location System (RTLS) | – same as WCC |
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Tag life of 7 years
|
– same as WCC |
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Tag blinks every second or more
|
– same as WCC |
| Real Time Location System available on hand held devices | |
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Locate RFID tag to within 30cm or better
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– WCC to within 1 meter |
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Uses Zebra Dart Technology
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– same as WCC |
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IEEE Standard 802.15 4f
(RFID Journal) |
– same as WCC |
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Operates at 6.3 GHz
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– WCC 6.35-6.75GHz |
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Tags have a range more than 300ft (RFID Journal)
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– same as WCC |
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Sensors have a range more than 600ft (BBC)
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Against RFID in schools 