In a ranch in Hida Takayama, cows rooming around have their own IPv6 addresses.
These cows are used for a project that is exploring the possibility of applying
networking technology to the field of agriculture. The project is part of “e!
project”, a series of demonstration experiments started by Japan’s Ministry
of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications in fiscal year
2002 at seven locations around the country to showcase the utility of the information
technology in different fields. Experiments with agriculture are underway in Gifu
prefecture and Yamanashi prefecture. Experiment in Gifu prefecture aims to improve
the traceability of cow and beef throughout their growth and distribution process,
and in Yamanashi prefecture similar experiments are performed for orchards. Of
these two experiments, this report focuses on the project in Gifu prefecture aiming
to improve traceability by using IPv6.
Tracking cows with wireless LAN
Outbreak of BSE has triggered an outcry for improving the traceability of beef,
for example by developing a system that allows tracing back information regarding
where a particular cow was raised and processed. For Gifu prefecture, which has
a brand name product “HidaGyu (Hida Beef)”, maintaining consumer’s
confidence in their products directly leads to the value of the product. Improving
traceability is an important topic for them.
Since, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan has already started
developing a system for attaching ID number to each domestic animal, there is
a possibility of applying networking technologies to this system to achieve real-time
information tracking.
In the present experiment developed and run by NEC Engineering, specially developed
modules equipped with temperature sensor and IEEE802.1b Wireless LAN adapter have
been attached to cows raised in an actual ranch in Gifu prefecture. These modules
can communicate using Mobile IPv6 through wireless LAN access points installed
in various locations around the ranch.
First of all, this system allows one to monitor the movement of cows by looking
at which access point the cow is accessing. Since stray cows are not uncommon
in a large ranch, ability to monitor the location of the animal in real-time has
significant merits.
Temperature sensors are located at the back of the tail of cows, and provide the
body temperature of cows in real-time. Managing the health of the animals by remote
monitoring their body temperature will not only help prevent the loss of animals
due to diseases, but also should help predict the timing of the mating season
and improve the efficiency of copulation.
Problems with developing the sensors for outdoor use
According to Yukio Kobayashi who is in charge of the experiment at NEC Engineering,
the most difficult task was developing the module for attaching to cows. They
had to make a module small as possible in a short period of time, and also make
it water resistance and durable for outdoor use. Because winter temperatures in
ranches in Hida Takayama can reach -20°C, they needed to take low temperatures
into considerations as well. Batteries needed to be as light and small as possible
in order to reduce the size of the module, but that will shorten the lifetime
of the battery as well. They needed to find the battery with the right balance
of size and lifetime by going through all the available technologies. Finding
a best position to attach the module also required some trial and errors.
Ideally, temperature sensor should be inserted into anus of the animal, but this
is hard to do since it will interfere with the defecation. In the present experiment,
sensors were attached to a skin behind the tail where there is no body hair, and
the temperature difference between the anus and the back of the tail was taken
into consideration when calculating the body temperature.
In this year’s experiment, traceability was limited. For now, it is only
possible to track the cows with a wireless module until they are sent to the Hida
Meat Center where they are processed for meat. However, ideally, the system should
be able to track meats produced from a single cow in real time during the distribution
process where the block of meat is divided into smaller pieces and eventually
sold at retail shops, and confirm that the sum of the weight of the meat from
a single animal remains constant throughout the process. In order to achieve this,
comprehensive tracking system that can cover even the later stages of the distribution
process is needed. In the project for the fiscal year 2003, Mr. Kobayashi plans
to expand the traceability.
In addition, the project is currently considering a system that uses lower digits
of the IPv6 address to directly represent information such as species, part of
the animal, and weight of the meat. This system is based on the idea that if information
such as “cow, dressed carcass, loin, 50kg” were coded with numbers and
incorporated into IPv6 address, it will be easier to track the information in
real-time. It utilizes one advantage of IPv6 address that allows one to treat
them almost as if they are for single-use. However, this system could also be
implemented using RFID.
