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SheepIT, an IoT-Based Weed Control System

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Information and Communication Technologies in Modern Agricultural Development (HAICTA 2017)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 953))

Abstract

The SheepIT project aims at developing a solution for monitoring and controlling grazing sheep in vineyards and similar cultures. The system should operate autonomously and guarantee that sheep only feed from infestant weeds, leaving untouched the vines and their fruits. Moreover, the system should also collect data about sheep activity for logging and analysis purposes. This paper presents the overall system’s architecture and its rationale, with focus on the posture monitoring and control subsystem. It includes practical results, obtained from a use case. These results are encouraging, showing that the developed system is able to estimate the sheep’s posture with a high accuracy, that the stimuli are applied efficiently and that sheep have sufficient cognitive capacity to learn quickly which behaviours they should avoid. Despite being preliminary, these results provide good indications regarding the practicableness of the system.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For the pitch and roll angles, we followed the definition given in [35].

  2. 2.

    https://www.rstudio.com/.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the European Structural Investment Funds (ESIF), through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project Nr. 017640 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-017640)].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. DETI/IT, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Luís Nóbrega & Paulo Pedreiras

  2. ESTGA/IT, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Pedro Gonçalves

Authors
  1. Luís Nóbrega
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  2. Paulo Pedreiras
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  3. Pedro Gonçalves
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Luís Nóbrega , Paulo Pedreiras or Pedro Gonçalves .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. TEI of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Michail Salampasis

  2. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Thomas Bournaris

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Nóbrega, L., Pedreiras, P., Gonçalves, P. (2019). SheepIT, an IoT-Based Weed Control System. In: Salampasis, M., Bournaris, T. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Modern Agricultural Development. HAICTA 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 953. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12998-9_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12998-9_10

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-12998-9

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