Dairy 4.0: Intelligent Communication Ecosystem for the Cattle Animal Welfare with Blockchain and IoT Enabled Technologies

Abstract

An intelligent ecosystem with real-time wireless technology is now playing a key role in meeting the sustainability requirements set by the United Nations. Dairy cattle are a major source of milk production all over the world. To meet the food demand of the growing population with maximum productivity, it is necessary for dairy farmers to adopt real-time monitoring technologies. In this study, we will be exploring and assimilating the limitless possibilities for technological interventions in dairy cattle to drastically improve their ecosystem. Intelligent systems for sensing, monitoring, and methods for analysis to be used in applications such as animal health monitoring, animal location tracking, milk quality, and supply chain, feed monitoring and safety, etc., have been discussed briefly. Furthermore, generalized architecture has been proposed that can be directly applied in the future for breakthroughs in research and development linked to data gathering and the processing of applications through edge devices, robots, drones, and blockchain for building intelligent ecosystems. In addition, the article discusses the possibilities and challenges of implementing previous techniques for different activities in dairy cattle. High computing power-based wearable devices, renewable energy harvesting, drone-based furious animal attack detection, and blockchain with IoT assisted systems for the milk supply chain are the vital recommendations addressed in this study for the effective implementation of the intelligent ecosystem in dairy cattle.