MEMS MooMonitor tracks herds

Hard Find Electronics Ltd 2013-02-01 08:01

PORTLAND, Ore.--Farm animals may be the next big thing for MEMS sensors, now that international bovine-gear maker Dairymaster is hawking a stylish micro-electro-mechanical system collar for cows called the MooMonitor.

The stakes are huge, since there are over 250 million dairy cows worldwide, according to the UK's Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, and over 1 billion each of sheep and pigs, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization. Dairymaster (Kerry, Ireland) is pioneering the use of MEMS sensors with cows while startups such as Anemon (Saint-Imier, Switzerland) are expanding from bovine into other livestock breeds.

"The MEMS industry should be taking a much closer look at agriculture and its related industries," said Alissa Fitzgerald, founder of the MEMS product development company A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates LLC (Burlingame, Calif.) "Agriculture could potentially be the next big market opportunity for MEMS sensors."

Dairymaster's MooMonitor tracks a herd, monitors each cows activity, letting them in and out of automatic doors and detects when they are ovulating.
Source: Dairymaster