Robotic Horse-Training Technologies for Cutting and Campdrafting Competitions

Annual Rodeo and Campdrafting (cow or bull/steer control) contests have grown in popularity in rural areas around the world, particularly in the US, Europe, Mexico and Australia. Bull-riding and horse-riding contests, and horse and steer roping events are often spectacular and keep large crowds enthralled. Various types of equine events also provide opportunities for horse breeders, cattle farmers and horse trainers to demonstrate advanced horse control and steer guidance skills. In a ‘Cutting’ contest, the horse must prevent a single cow from returning to its herd by intercepting it and blocking its path for the longest possible time within competition rules. In a ‘Campdrafting’ contest, the horse-rider must guide or force a single steer to follow a specific course or pathway by making the steer move around two or three fixed points and through a gate. Even after a short amount of training time (typically even just a few minutes), steers (bulls) tend to tire easily and end up stopping or sitting down to rest. Horse trainers find this problem frustrating and need better and more reliable methods to help train their competition horses over much longer periods of time, to give their horses an edge over their competition. This paper describes the development of several different types of robots that can be used for preparing horses for competitions, namely, the ‘Cutting’ contest (steer blocking) and the ‘Campdrafting’ (or steer-control) contest. Both of these types of equine contests will be described along with the mechatronic designs and control methods for remote controlled prototypes that have been built for training horses for such events. Development problems have been experienced and proposed solutions are also described, along with recommendations for future fully-autonomous designs which promise better control and performance. Other farming and agricultural uses for this type of technology are also discussed briefly.