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At PLF-Hub, we are convinced that rapid technological development and innovation in livestock husbandry offers the prospect of meeting future demands for food in a sustainable and welfare friendly manner.

PLF-Hub addresses new risks for animal health, welfare and production by development of PLF technologies which we define as tools for management of livestock by continuous, automated real-time, monitoring of production/reproduction, health and welfare of livestock and environmental impact.

The University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria recognized the emergence of Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) technologies and new challenges related to digitalization in modern livestock farming.

Digitalization in animal monitoring was named as one of the key action areas impacting all three missions, i.e. research, education, and knowledge transfer at the Vetmeduni. Against a backdrop of digitalization and emergence of new technologies, the Vetmeduni is fortifying its infrastructure for research and teaching through new investments. Among those is a shared facility called Precision Livestock Farming Hub (PLF-Hub) founded in 2025 within the Clinical Department Farm Animals and Food System Transformation.

Research framework of PLF-Hub is focused on application of various computer vision techniques such as object detection, key point detection or tracking, to monitor livestock's health, welfare and productivity. The role of PLF-Hub is to support the transition of livestock production into fully automated systems. Research on PLF at Vetmeduni supports this transition by: 

• Promoting development of welfare friendly and sustainable systems through our industry partnerships

• Increasing understanding among vets of algorithm-based monitoring and decision-making

• It’s continuous character as opposed to occasional at many other research institutions

Researchers at the PLF-Hub develop technology from TRL1 to TRL 6. Thus, 1) start from basic research - observation of basic principles and concept development 2) focus on applied research - proof of concept, technology validation in lab, technology validation in operation, to finally demonstrate technology in operation. In most projects scientists at the PLF-Hub rely on basic research that has already been done by the scientists at the partner research groups. The main focus at the PLF-Hub is on applied research with algorithm development and validation. In selected projects algorithms will be implemented in real-time with dashboards providing overview of outputs of the algorithms.

Our offices are located at Vetmeduni Campus in Vienna and at VetFarm, one hour drive from Vienna, where engineering research staff works in close collaboration with vets and animal scientists.

In many of our research projects we validate developed models on real-time data collected on our research farms, present the results in real-time dashboards and explor relationship between users of PLF technology and the animals on farms.

In our List of Projects you will find exciting examples of our research.

List of projects

PLF-Hub together with its core collaborative partners at Vetmeduni has published over 40 scientific publications in international journals, conference proceedings and books in the last few years. We are collaborating with many scientific teams worldwide.

List of publications

You are invited to visit our offices at Vetmeduni Campus in Vienna and at VetFarm, Kremesberg, Lower Austria. Our office at VetFarm is located in particularly scenic countryside area.   

Enjoy our webpages and don’t hesitate to contact us whenever you wish.

Kind regards,

Maciej Oczak

Head of PLF-Hub