A remote-controlled car with a flag on a pole can herd cattle

A tiny remote-controlled conveyance proved effectual astatine keeping cows distant from overgrazed areas, and the animals showed fewer signs of fearfulness oregon aggression

Environment 13 October 2022

By Christa Lesté-Lasserre

Herding cattle utilizing remote-controlled vehicles could beryllium a welfare-friendly mode to amended onshore management.

In a preliminary study, cows showed small fearfulness arsenic they walked distant from the 16-centimetre-high cars rolling towards them, adjacent the archetypal clip they saw the toys. The findings suggest farmers could usage specified simple, low-cost devices to forestall ungraded erosion, invasive works maturation and taxon nonaccomplishment caused by overgrazing, says Hiroki Anzai astatine the University of Miyazaki successful Japan.

Ultimately, the researchers anticipation to make autonomous herding robots that don’t person to beryllium driven by distant control.

“I judge robotic herding, specified arsenic with …