\documentclass[10pt, draftclsnofoot,onecolumn]{IEEEtran} \linespread{1} \begin{document} \title{Fenceless Grazing Problem Statement} \author{Danila Fedorin} \maketitle \begin{abstract} Automation is an increasingly important component of modern business. However, as other industries rise up the ladder of automation, cattle farming stagnates: farmers continue to personally herd their cattle in the same ways they did decades ago, exerting needless time and effort. We propose an automated, fenceless grazing system that would allow for the management of cattle through a digital interface, rather than through physical labor. \end{abstract} \section{Introduction} Automation is prevalent in our modern age. Consumer technology like cars and computers is assembled in enormous, largely automated factories, optimized for utmost precision. Planting and harvesting is performed using specialized machines that significantly decrease the time and effort required of the farmer. Cattle farming, however, is diferent. To this day, the manipulation of herds of cows is performed either by humans or by trained animals. Doing so takes up a huge amount of time. At the same time, farmers list lack of labor as the main limiting factor to their growth. The time and effort spent manually herding cattle can be better used elsewhere, aleviating the labor shortage and facilitating the growth of farms. We propose a technology that can be used to automate the herding of cattle largely without human or animal intervention. This technology is a specialized collar, integrated with GPS, sound, and the ability to administer a mild shock. Equipped with such a collar, the position of an animal will be well-known through the GPS, and undesired behavior (such as leaving a particular area), can be discouraged with an unpleasant sound, in some cases followed by an electric shock. Together with the ability to specify desired locations for a herd, this technology would allow farmers to control the animals without physically being present, with various additional benefits. \section{Solution Specifications} \subsection{GPS} The first component of our proposed solution is the integration of GPS (Global Positioning System) into the collar. Through this, farmers will be able to precisely track the locations of individual animals in a herd without being physically present. This information, combined with a description of the "allowed" area, can be used to judge whether or not an animal is "out of bounds", and thus, if action should be taken to return it to a desired location. TODO Mention how the information will be relayed \subsection{Sound and Shock} Simply knowing the location of an animal is not particularly helpful for reducing the amount of human and animal labor that is needed for cattle farming. The purpose of this project is to reduce such labor. To do so, animals will be automatically discouraged from leaving an area through the use of sounds and electric shocks. This can be done in two stages. First, as the animal approaches an "out of bounds" area, the collar's integrated speaker will produce an unpleasant sound. The sound will get progressively louder as the cow approaches the region boundary. At a particularly close distance, the device will administer a shock, with the intention of discouraging further movemenent. Should this be successful, farmer intervention will be unnecessary - all the actions described above can be performed automatically by the collar. \subsection{External Control System} It is not difficult to imagine a situation in which the desired location of a herd of animals changes. In such a case, the collars will need to be adjusted to operate based on this new information. The third component of our project is an interface that allows users to apply changes to the operating parameters of the collar, performing adjustment without having to be physically present with the cattle. In the best case scenario, this interface will also allow users to monitor in real time the location of the animals as they graze in a particular area. Such an external control system can be implemented as mobile app. Users of this app will be able to modify the grazing boundaries of a herd through the use of their mobile device. \section{Performance Metrics} Since this project specifies a physical device to be put onto animals, the first metric to evaluate project completion is the existence of a working prototype. At minimum, the working prototype should be able to track the location of a farm animal, emiting a warning signal (in the form of a sound and/or a shock) when the animal approaches the boundary of the prescribed region. Additionally, since an external control system (an app) is part of the project specification, another performance metric is the usability of the client-facing software. It should not be necessary for the client (likely a farmer) to have an in-depth knowledge of the software or hardware that underlies the project. Thus, the interface should be simple and intuitive. This can be evaluated through a user study, presenting a completed application to a group of people from the target demographic (farmers), and evaluating the outcomes of their interaction with the software. Completion of the app will be achieved when a client can successfully use the interface to perform actions such as adjusting the grazing region and locating individual cows, with the changes being reflected in the operation of the collar prototypes discussed above. Finally, in order to determine whether or not the project has been completed, it will be necessary to ensure that the prototype can be used in the field. If a prototype is not fit for testing on real animals, it should not be considered complete. \end{document}