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This research aims to improve welfare of dairy cattle by developing a system which detects early signs of lameness through recognising changes in an individual cow’s gait. The system is installed in the floor of the exit race of the milking parlour; each cow walks across a set of forceplates thus generating a unique signal pattern which is interpreted by a pattern classification system. The system recognises each cow by its id tag and compares the footstrike pattern with the historical data from that cow. Variations in the footstrike pattern outside the normal range can be correlated with the onset of lameness.
It is anticipated that the system will detect lameness earlier and more reliably than current methods, and would provide an “expert system” that is not dependent on user skill. It will be cost effective in herds of 100+ cows, which accounts for 60% of the national herd.
This DEFRA funded project utilises a 5 AMTI force plate array which records vertical (up/down), cranio-caudal (forward/backward) and medio-lateral (left/right) forces of each of the cows twice daily after milking.
Alongside the forceplate array two Basler firewire cameras autonomously record the movements of each cow across the force plates from the side and rear, allowing us to correlate lameness detected by the system with visual gait.
For further information about this project please contact
Anthony Channon, Dr. Thilo Pfau or Dr. Alan Wilson
Structure and Motion Lab These pages maintained by the SML Contact: Alan Wilson
