28 April, 2010
category: RFID
A herd of dairy cows from the University of Waterloo are using Twitter to communicate their status, according to a Mashable report.
The data for the tweets come from a computer operated, cow initiated milking system run via RFID. Each cow wears a tag that communicates with a central computer and coordinates her activities.
As she approaches the milking pen, a reader captures the tag and determines whether or not the cow is scheduled to be milked, based on her stage of lactation and average daily output. If the cow is ready for milking, she is allowed into the pen.
Once inside, a robotic arm washes her, latches on, and extracts the milk while the cow eats high-grade feed to make her happy.
The milk output and feed input is recorded by the main computer and stored in a database, along with the total milking time and total time in pen.
To read more click here.