As part of the transition of PLF-Hub into a shared facility Stefan Kupfer became permanent research technician within PLF-Hub. Stefan will support new tasks of PLF-Hub within the department such as technical assistance and coordination for integrating sensor systems; development of code and hardware design for embedded sensor systems; integration and management of sensors in the existing network e.g. cameras, water flow, RFID etc.

As part of "Vetmeduni+" reform Mathias Gosch joined PLF-Hub as a PhD student. His PhD is focused on real-time video video analysis for monitoring calving on farms. Mathias applies key point based behaviour detection methods to automatically detect cow behaviours relevant for parturition prediction. Mathias is a receipient of the 2025 USPLF Scientific Award with the paper "Pose classification for detection of calving related behavior in dairy cows".

Peter Helf starts in a PhD position at PLF-Hub funded by the PLFDoc doctoral school on Precision Livestock Farming. Peter has a MSc degree in computer science and AI engineering and substantial experience in computer vision proejcts. He will focus on computer vision for farrowing prediction and monitoring, including body condition scoring of dry sows. 

The PLFdoc doctoral school on Precision Livestock Farming was accepted for funding by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). PLFDoc is a collaboration between the Vetmeduni Vienna, the Technical university Vienna and the Univesrity of Applied Science Upper Austria. Research focus of the PLFDoc will be on application of computer vision for monitoring parturition in cows and pigs. The main aim of the PLFDoc is to enhance animal welfare, e.g. through early detection of dystocia and preventing the death of newborns and their dams in this sensitive period and other health- and welfare-related risks. 

Long standing collaboration between M3Biores and PLF-Hub was formalized through signing of a dual PhD agreement. This agreement provides an opportunity for PhD students at PLF-Hub to obtain a PhD title from both universities i.e. Vetmeduni Vienna and KU Leuven. Additinally, secondments at M3Biores with duration of 6 months are planned for students admitted to the dual PhD programme.

Online worshop on animal monotring took place for a second time at Vetmeduni Vienna. This year the focus of the workshop was on computer vision in livestock and digitalization strategy for the research farm of the Vetmeduni Vienna. The summary of the conclussions from ECPLF2022 was presented to the participants.  

Conference 29th August - 2nd September 2022 in Vienna, Austria

More Information - Website of ECPLF & PDC 2022

Organizationally and in terms of sponsorship the conference was a success:

• The most important PLF conference in the world besides USPLF and PLF-Asia

• 158 papers/posters, 370 participants from 26 countries

• New PLF projects were committed for the Vetmeduni

• Good atmosphere and collegial interaction among the participants

An exciting new proejct was initiated in collaboration with our industry partner Schauer and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). The proejct is focused on computer vision based body condition scoring (BCS) in automated feeding stations for pigs. BCS will be used as an input to optimise the precision feeding for sows. Experimental setup is composed of 10 cameras inside the feeding station.Multiple additinoal sensors were installed as part of the experimental setup e.g. RFID antennas on hay racks and drinkers.     

The first online workshop on animal monitoring at Vetmeduni took place with particiaption of approx 25 scientsts from our university and several guests representing the PLF industry (e.g. Soundtalks, Zoetis, Schauer). Additionally representatives of external research consorta provided scientific input during the workshop. We would like to than all the particiapnt for valuable contributions and interesting discussion. 

We welcome new employes in PLF-Hub Nick Hockings and Albert Cirera. Nick starts in a PostDoc position co-funded by our strategic partner Zoetis and will focus on a project on Machine Perception for PLF. Albert Cirera starts in a PhD position in collaboration with The Clinical Unit of Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Intensive-Care Medicine of Vetmeduni Vienna and and will focus on a project on computer vision for pain detection in horses.   

Stefan Kupfer starts in a position of a techncian at PLF-Hub. Stefan will focus on installation, development and testing of various sensor systems for the purpose of livestock monitoring. He will work on specification and development of demonstrator setups where functionality of new sensor technology for monitoring of animals will be tested. This includes developing code for embedded sensor systems and prototyping platforms e.g. Arduino, Raspberry Pi.

Zoetis is the largest standalone animal health company in the world and is ranked #1 in market share for biologicals and pharmaceuticals. Zoetis is expanding on its portfolio in the Precision Livestock Farming market and is intensifying its research activity in this area. In this context Zoeits and Vetmeduni Vienna decided to formalise the collaboration in the area of Precision Livestock Farming by signing Master Collaborative Research Agreement. The aim of the collaboration is to:

• educate new professionals capable of advancing the PLF sector to meet the future demands
• substantially advance the livestock farming sector as well as improve the economic stability of rural areas
• validate of developed PLF tools (real-time algorithms)
• put special interest on the interaction between the user, the animal, and technology
• contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

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 establishment of a new research group called Precision Livestock Farming Hub (PLF-Hub) in June 2019 within the Department for Farm Animals and Veterinary Public Health.

PLF-Hub will focus on three major area in research on livestock monitoring: solution-oriented research, integration of key welfare, health and production indicators and also wider adoption of image analysis. These major research areas will be supplemented by validation studies on open datasets and advances in robotics.