Post by account_disabled on Feb 25, 2024 7:21:25 GMT
The smart ranches of the future
If you're a farmer with a herd of hundreds of cows, monitoring their whereabouts and well-being can be a challenging job, but we've seen how sensor tags could one day ease the burden. New research has taken this concept in an interesting, self-sustaining direction, demonstrating how smartwatch-style sensors strapped to cows' ankles and necks can power themselves through the animals' movements.
Some sensors and tags are already used to help monitor the location of livestock, to prevent them from straying too far. But scientists at Southwest Jiaotong University in China have explored the idea of a "smart ranch," where advanced sensors would monitor the environment and the animals themselves, and would be powered largely by kinetic energy.
"On a ranch, monitoring livestock environmental and health information can help prevent diseases and improve the efficiency of husbandry and pasture management," says co-author Zutao Zhang. "This info C Level Executive List rmation can include oxygen concentration, air temperature and humidity, amount of exercise, reproductive cycles, diseases, and milk production ."
On the team's hypothetical smart ranch, cows would wear a smartwatch-like wearable device shaped like a scallop shell. The shell moves in sync with the animals' body, while a pendulum inside rotates and works with magnets and coils to amplify these movements and convert kinetic energy into electrical energy, which is stored in an onboard lithium battery. .
"There is a tremendous amount of kinetic energy that can be collected in the daily movements of livestock, such as walking, running and even neck movement," says co-author Yajia Pan, an energy researcher at Southwest Jiaotong University.
The team tested the device's energy harvesting potential in laboratory tests that simulated livestock movements and showed that it could generate enough energy for small sensors. The scientists also tested the device on humans and found that a light jog was all that was needed to activate a temperature measurement function.
"Kinetic energy is everywhere in the environment: leaves swaying in the wind, the movement of people and animals, the rippling of waves, the rotation of the earth - all of these phenomena contain a lot of kinetic energy," says Zhang. "We shouldn't let this energy go to waste.
If you're a farmer with a herd of hundreds of cows, monitoring their whereabouts and well-being can be a challenging job, but we've seen how sensor tags could one day ease the burden. New research has taken this concept in an interesting, self-sustaining direction, demonstrating how smartwatch-style sensors strapped to cows' ankles and necks can power themselves through the animals' movements.
Some sensors and tags are already used to help monitor the location of livestock, to prevent them from straying too far. But scientists at Southwest Jiaotong University in China have explored the idea of a "smart ranch," where advanced sensors would monitor the environment and the animals themselves, and would be powered largely by kinetic energy.
"On a ranch, monitoring livestock environmental and health information can help prevent diseases and improve the efficiency of husbandry and pasture management," says co-author Zutao Zhang. "This info C Level Executive List rmation can include oxygen concentration, air temperature and humidity, amount of exercise, reproductive cycles, diseases, and milk production ."
On the team's hypothetical smart ranch, cows would wear a smartwatch-like wearable device shaped like a scallop shell. The shell moves in sync with the animals' body, while a pendulum inside rotates and works with magnets and coils to amplify these movements and convert kinetic energy into electrical energy, which is stored in an onboard lithium battery. .
"There is a tremendous amount of kinetic energy that can be collected in the daily movements of livestock, such as walking, running and even neck movement," says co-author Yajia Pan, an energy researcher at Southwest Jiaotong University.
The team tested the device's energy harvesting potential in laboratory tests that simulated livestock movements and showed that it could generate enough energy for small sensors. The scientists also tested the device on humans and found that a light jog was all that was needed to activate a temperature measurement function.
"Kinetic energy is everywhere in the environment: leaves swaying in the wind, the movement of people and animals, the rippling of waves, the rotation of the earth - all of these phenomena contain a lot of kinetic energy," says Zhang. "We shouldn't let this energy go to waste.
