A Low-Cost IoT Platform for Heat Stress Monitoring in Dairy Cattle

This paper presents a compact and modular system based on Internet-of- Things for monitoring cattle behavior and stress in real-time. It will help to model certain parameters such as temperature and certain weather variables such as relative humidity, solar radiation, among others thanks to Internet-of- Things (IoT) sensors localized in different points of barns and the fields for cattle farming. A main benefit of the system is that it is built with low-cost hardware and low battery consumption. The wireless system also allows the collection of data in real-time and obtains the temperature-humidity index. This index will give an approach to the heat stress in cattle not only on the farm but in the vicinity of the farm. Finally, the high amount of collected data will allow employing Big Data solutions for estimating the impact on milk productivity. In the future, more sensors will be deployed for a more detailed reading of weather variables and their impact on dairy cattle.