A wireless floating base sensor network for physiological responses of livestock

This article presents a wireless sensor network prototype to monitor physiological responses of livestock. As an example application the bovine brain electrical activity was monitored. The system is a novel low cost wireless communication protocol named Wireless Floating Base Sensor Network (FBSN) protocol. The basic equipment consists of two modules, one positioned at the animal (animal's module) and the other in an observation station (base module). The first one measures physiological responses from digital sensors, digitalizes data, and transmits it to the base module. The base module in turn, using an FBSN protocol, controls data collection from different animal modules and stores the data. The equipment developed and the FBSN protocol were able to monitor bovine brain electrical activity in six free moving animals for a period of 3 days. The system was designed with the ability to monitor any number of animals for a period that depends on physiological measurement and battery lifetime.