AUTHOR=Handa Divya , Peschel Joshua M. TITLE=A Review of Monitoring Techniques for Livestock Respiration and Sounds JOURNAL=Frontiers in Animal Science VOLUME=3 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/animal-science/articles/10.3389/fanim.2022.904834 DOI=10.3389/fanim.2022.904834 ISSN=2673-6225 ABSTRACT=

This article reviews the different techniques used to monitor the respiration and sounds of livestock. Livestock respiration is commonly assessed visually by observing abdomen fluctuation; however, the traditional methods are time consuming, subjective, being therefore impractical for large-scale operations and must rely on automation. Contact and non-contact technologies are used to automatically monitor respiration rate; contact technologies (e.g., accelerometers, pressure sensors, and thermistors) utilize sensors that are physically mounted on livestock while non-contact technologies (e.g., computer vision, thermography, and sound analysis) enable a non-invasive method of monitoring respiration. This work summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of contact and non-contact technologies and discusses the emerging role of non-contact sensors in automating monitoring for large-scale farming operations. This work is the first in-depth examination of automated monitoring technologies for livestock respiratory diseases; the findings and recommendations are important for livestock researchers and practitioners who can gain a better understanding of these different technologies, especially emerging non-contact sensing.