Attention Makers

CATEGORY: SUSTAINABILITY

OpenFence: GPS Based Livestock Management

MAKERS: Alex COUNTRY: Australia

OpenFence uses GPS and stereo audio alerts to contain livestock within a specified boundary. The aim is to make it easier to implement more sustainable grazing practises.

The Purpose

OpenFence is designed to make it easier to implement productive and environmentally friendly grazing practises, such as cell grazing. Cell grazing involves splitting a property into many small paddocks (requiring more fencing than common continuous grazing), moving animals frequently (every few days), and then allowing that cell to rest for an extended period. This style of grazing has been shown to increase biodiversity, ground cover, soil carbon and water retention, however it is not as commonly implemented due to the additional expenses of fencing and labour.

The Technology

OpenFence is an open source digital livestock fencing system, which uses GPS and stereo audio alerts to contain animals within a specified boundary. The location of the fences can be updated using the web interface, and transferred to collar devices via an in field base station. The movements of the animals are also logged and transferred to the web to allow analysis of movements and land utilisation.

Additional Details

Current Status: PCB design and manufacture complete. Prototype enclosure designed and printed. Collar software: major functions implemented including geofence algorithms. Base station software: Download fence locations from web and upload data logged points. Web Interface: Fence placement and viewing of data logged locations. Power consumption of collar down to 7mA in sleep mode. Wireless communications between collars and base station via LoRa.

Home Previous Next

Vote Share Comment