Submitted to: Smart Agricultural Technology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/10/2025
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Monitoring cattle in large pastures with limited visibility is difficult for ranchers. In this study, tracking collars were placed on cattle that provided location and behavior data (walking, grazing, ruminating, and resting) in real time. Five types of machine learning methods were used to identify these behaviors using computer models. In addition, cows were observed and video recordings were made to validate accuracy of behavior classification by computer models. All five classifiers separated activities correctly. These results suggest that models can be developed to predict activity of cattle on desert rangeland. This information can be used to assist ranchers with management decisions and improve animal welfare.

Technical Abstract: Monitoring cattle on large, often rugged, rangelands is a daunting task that can be improved using LoRa-WAN tracking and monitoring technology. This study tested the performance of five machine learning classifiers to discriminate between active and stationary states, and among walking, grazing, ruminating and resting behaviors of cattle. Models were trained and tested using a single motion index (MI) collected at 1-minute intervals by LoRa-WAN cattle collars equipped with a GNSS receptor and triaxial accelerometer. Twenty-four mature cows of four breeds were monitored across four periods between July and November 2022. Behavioral observations were made using 168 h of video records, which resulted in a dataset of 9,222 instances of labeled sensor data. Logistic regression, support vector machine, multilayer perceptron, XGBoost and random forest algorithms were trained and tested. No differences in MI were detected between ruminating and resting; therefore, subsequent model testing considered the combination of rumination and resting as one class. All classifiers correctly differentiated between the two states and among grazing, walking and resting behaviors with an accuracy and F-1 scores of >0.95 and >0.90, respectively. The results suggest satisfactory application of trained models to monitor cattle behavior on desert rangeland.