Development of a wireless sensor network for animal management: Experiences with Moosense

A wireless sensor network based precision animal management system developed by us called Moosense is presented. Moosense is deployed in the Livestock Research Centre (LRC) of National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) Karnal. It is spread across a cluster of sensor networks where each cluster has a set of specialized systems, installed on the ground or mounted on the animals, which are responsible for live-monitoring of a variety of cattle-health parameters. Each cluster has a gateway to which the devices are connected either directly or through a set of relay nodes. The gateways are connected to a central station where all sensor data of LRC is archived and analysed. Through Moosense, we share our experiences with the development of structurally and functionally complex sensor networks for challenging environments such as in animal husbandry. Moosense is one of the first operational multi-objective wireless sensor networks in India being actively used for precision dairy research.