A vision guided robot for tracking a live, loosely constrained pig

This paper reports a step towards the development of robotic systems capable of applying sensors to animals so that valuable information about their health and development can be obtained automatically. A vision guided robot has been designed to track a given position (the P2 position used for backfat measurement) on the body of a pig as it stands, loosely constrained, in a feeding stall. The vision guidance system was based on a model which predicted the P2 position from the positions of points on the periphery of plan view video images of the pig. A purpose built, two axis, SCARA robot with pneumatic actuation was developed. The tracking performance of the combined robot and image analysis system was evaluated by testing the ability of the robot to track recorded images of a pig moving around in a feeding stall, and by its ability to track live pigs in a field trial. The results showed that it should be feasible for a vision guided, pneumatic robot to track a moving pig and place an ultrasonic sensor at a target position on its back at a frequency which would enable useful data to be collected. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.