ABSTRACT

The usage of internet has so much affected all fields of human endeavor. This has led to increased dependence on it, in such a way that even the things that are used in human day to day living are dependent on communication technology. Hence, heralding a new era of Internet of Things (IoT). This work dealt on the application of telecommunication network as a vital tool for the production and management of livestock. The work majored on the use of Internet of Things (IoT) for monitoring and controlling the development of livestock. To achieve this some of the objectives were, to find out the parameters that could be used to monitor livestock wellbeing online and in real-time and also to design a mathematical model that could be used to determine the weight/health status of a livestock from the characterized data. The research adopted a wireless sensor network based on ZigBee communication protocol with other sensing elements, (like RFID, accelerometer) in order to establish communication link between the livestock and the farmer. Some of the parameters used to estimate the state of well being of the livestock were the height and the size, which were used to compare the weight and the body mass of the livestock.  The sensor nodes which were worn as collar by the livestock send signals through a base station about any deviation as it concerns the weight of the livestock. Hence alert in form of a short message signal (SMS) is sent to the farmer’s GSM phone, which prompts him for action. The result shows that livestock monitored using IoT performed better because they were well monitored and quickly responded compared to livestock’s monitored manually, because challenges were detected early enough and treated.