OBIHIRO, HOKKAIDO – Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, NTT Docomo Inc. and others plan to develop a system to monitor dairy cows using fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks, aiming for commercialization in 2022. The system will use vast amounts of photographic data to detect early signs of illness and estrus in dairy cows. The aim is to ease the heavy burdens on dairy farmers blamed in part for the difficulties they face finding successors. Also on the development team is Tsuchiya Manufacturing Co., a dairy farming equipment maker based in Sapporo. The system will feed photographic data from cameras in cattle sheds to artificial intelligence for learning and analysis, informing farmers promptly via smartphone if there are signs of illness or estrus in cows.

Is the world ready for cows armed with artificial intelligence? No time to ruminate on that because the moment has arrived, thanks to a Dutch company that has married two technologies -- motion sensors and AI -- with the aim of bringing the barnyard into the 21st century. The company, Connecterra, has brought its IDA system, or "The Intelligent Dairy Farmer's Assistant," to the United States after having piloted it in Europe for several years. IDA uses a motion-sensing device attached to a cow's neck to transmit its movements to a program driven by AI. The sensor data, when aligned repeatedly with real-world behavior, eventually allows IDA to tell from data alone when a cow is chewing cud, lying down, walking, drinking or eating.

Is the world ready for cows armed with artificial intelligence? No time to ruminate on that because the moment has arrived, thanks to a Dutch company that has married two technologies -- motion sensors and AI -- with the aim of bringing the barnyard into the 21st century. The company, Connecterra, has brought its IDA system, or "The Intelligent Dairy Farmer's Assistant," to the United States after having piloted it in Europe for several years. IDA uses a motion-sensing device attached to a cow's neck to transmit its movements to a program driven by AI. The sensor data, when aligned repeatedly with real-world behavior, eventually allows IDA to tell from data alone when a cow is chewing cud, lying down, walking, drinking or eating.