Observation of animals has been the key to understanding their well-being throughout the history of research and in daily animal husbandry. However, the time humans spend observing each individual is constantly decreasing in today's production systems.
The digital development has provided us with entirely new opportunities to monitor animals in their daily lives, around the clock, whether it's in a barn or out in pasture. In this way, we can enhance our ability to evaluate how they are faring and whether they show signs of illness.
Studying body shape, movement, posture, and facial expressions can provide us with detailed information that can be collected using various motion-sensing sensors or cameras. The information is then interpreted by a computer to inform the animal keeper. However, to understand what the animals are really saying with their body language, we need to study the different expressions and train the computer to understand them. In our projects, we do this by building digital models of cows using AI and by learning more specifically about how different movements and facial expressions signal the well-being of the animal.
Elin Hernlund is a clinical veterinarian at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and an associate senior lecturer. She is also working at the department of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. She has a PhD in biomechanics and has done research at KTH, UC Davis, UC San Diego and the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen. Since 2024, she is a Beijer researcher at the Beijer Laboratory for Animal Research.
