Abstract

Management-intensive grazing is a grazing management strategy that relies on careful monitoring of animals at pasture and frequent relocation of animals between various regions of the pasture, or paddocks, in order to maximize the nutrients and sustenance the animals obtain through grazing. When applied successfully, this approach to grazing management yields higher animal production, while cutting feed costs; however, a great deal of overhead is introduced in monitoring and moving the animals throughout the pasture, making this approach very difficult to implement at a large scale. Recent successes in the field of dynamic virtual fencing have demonstrated the feasibility of automatically restraining and moving cattle within a pasture, and without the need to build or move fences. This technology may be used to reduce the physical overhead of management-intensive grazing, but it does not address the decision-making aspects. This thesis proposes a decision-making system to be used in conjunction with dynamic virtual fence technology to implement a fully-automated intensive grazing management strategy. The system has been implemented and tested in simulation, and the results thereof are presented and analyzed.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Grazing--Management--Data processing; Range management--Data processing; Fences

Publication Date

1-1-2008

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Computer Science (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

Computer Science (GCCIS)

Advisor

Zach Butler

Advisor/Committee Member

Leon Reznik

Advisor/Committee Member

Joe Geigel

Comments

Physical copy available from RIT's Wallace Library at SF84.86 .V66 2008

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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