Potential use of autonomous vehicles on cattle stations, feedlots and processing plants

Summary

​A previous project between HDT Expeditionary Systems and Meat & Livestpock Australia (MLA) developed an autonomous vehicle capable of operating on cattle stations (P.PSH.0850). In November, 2017, HDT and MLA personnel visited several cattle stations in the northern region of the Western Territories to better understand the tasks that this autonomous vehicle could perform on a cattle station (P.PSH.1003).

For the current project, HDT and MLA personnel visited a cattle station in northern Queensland in June, 2018 and a feedlot west of Brisbane in July, 2018. At the cattle station, we studied their current methods for eradicating infestations of woody weeds. We developed computer models of their two most successful manual processes, and then we modified those models to evaluate the impact of using an autonomous vehicle. This work showed that an autonomous vehicle can eradicate woody weeds at a lower cost, with a long-term result that will likely be more effective.

At the cattle station, we also took several thousand high resolution photos of Chinee Apple (Ziziphus mauritiana), which is the primary woody weed invasive species that they are battling. We also took several thousand photos of native plant species. The purpose of these photos is to train an image recognition algorithm to determine if an autonomous system can reliably discriminate between plant species that should be eradicated and plant species that should be preserved.