DESC:[001] Priority Claim
[002] This application claims priority from the Provisional Application Number: 3026/CHE/2013 filed with Indian patent Office, Chennai on 5th July, 2013 entitled “Farm and herd management system”, the entirety of which is expressly incorporated herein by reference.
[003] Description of the invention
[004] The following specification particularly describes the invention and the manner in which it is to be performed:
[005] Technical field of the invention
[006] The present invention relates to a system for use in agricultural sector. More specifically, the invention relates to a herd management system which is hosted in the cloud environment and communicates with different farms through a single gateway installed in each farm via mobile network. The system manages dairy/farm equipment’s, livestock and farm related activities.
[007] Background of the invention
[008] A farm is an area of land that includes various structures devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food (produce, grains, or livestock), fibers etc. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single individual, family, community, corporation or a company. A farm can be a holding of any size from a fraction of a hectare to several thousand hectares.
[009] Managing farms is one of the challenges faced by every farm owner Managing a farm not only includes the management of farm equipment’s and farm animals but also requires exchange of information taking place between different people engaged in farm activities. Proper availability of information to every farm worker including top management people leads to improved performance of farm and better productivity.
[0010] Nowadays, a large number of farm management systems and herd management systems are available which help to keep control of records while helping meet regulations, lowering costs and improve farm performance. In conventional herd management systems a vendor'smanagement system is deployed in each premise and is hardwired to the specific vendor's farm/dairy equipment only. It is a one-to-one mapping of equipment to management system. Each such management system instance is installed and configured on a Personal Computer (PC) and potentially requires a suitable Internet connectivity for the vendor to be able to receive data in an offline manner (e.g. email) to scrutinize the data thus increasing the infrastructure and bandwidth requirements in each farm. Additionally any version changes in the software will require updates to be manually performed in each premise. This kind of management system increases the work load and cost of infrastructure.
[0011] Cloud/internet based herd management systems available but the main problem with this system is that all the information relating to farm has to be fed manually as the system lacks a feature of automated delivery of data from each farm based equipment to the cloud based system thereby requires lot of manual data entry work.
[0012] The herd management systems explained above, which exists in the state of the art have certain major disadvantages that they require a lot of infrastructure in place such as PC, bandwidth for Internet connectivity. Moreover, for an illiterate or a semi-literate farmer, these systems are of very little use because they are expected to know and operate the system as the system does not have any feature for sending automated alerts or information to the farmers. So the farmers find it complex to understand the importance of various types of data or to analyze the data stored in the system.
[0013] Hence, there is a need of a herd management system that facilitates automated delivery of information from the farm based equipment’s to the cloud based herd management system which may avoid manual data entry work and requires less use of infrastructure.
[0014] Summary
[0015] The present invention overcomes the drawbacks of the technology models available in the state of the art by providing a farm and herd management system which enables automated exchange of data between each farm and the cloud based herd management system, Different farms communicate with the herd management system via gateways installed in each farm overcoming the drawbacks of traditional technology models where there was one to one mapping between the farm equipment’s and the management system. The present system also eliminates the need of additional infrastructure such as need of a personal computer to be kept and maintained by each farmer and avoids lot of manual data entry work.
[0016] A data analytic module performs the automatic real-time analysis of incoming data received through a plurality of gateways installed in a plurality of farms along with the existing recorded data. An alert and notification module screens the data and sends relevant information to specific end users through Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network indicating issues or events in specific farms.
[0017] A two way communication module allows automated capture and flow of data between the plurality of farm gateways and the herd management system hosted on servers on the cloud which may be accessed via Internet/Mobile Network.
[0018] A data security module maintains the privacy and confidentiality of the end users of herd management system by not allowing data of one farm to be seen by the other farm and a business report generation module is configured, to generate the reports on different parameters which are of interest to the end users.
[0019] The present invention ensures automated delivery of information from the farm based equipment’s to the cloud based herd management system which may avoid manual data entry work and requires less use of infrastructure. The present invention configures business rules used for decision making based on the available data and events received, which in return increases the business development.
[0020] Brief description of the drawings:
[0021] The foregoing and other features of embodiments will become more apparent from the following detailed description of embodiments when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numerals refer to like elements.
[0022] FIG 1is a block diagram which illustrates various modules present in herd management system in accordance to one or more embodiments of the invention.
[0023] FIG2 is a block diagram which illustrates an exemplary network environment within which system and method of herd management is implemented in accordance to one or more embodiments of the invention.
[0024] Detailed description of the invention:
[0025] The present invention relates to a farm and herd management system which enables automated exchange of data between each farm and the cloud based herd management system. The present invention comprises of different modules, data analytic module, an alert and notification module, a two way communication module, a data security module and a business report generation module. The present system is hosted on servers on the cloud which may be accessed via Internet/Mobile Network.
[0026] Different farms communicate with the herd management system via gateways installed in each farm overcoming the drawbacks of traditional technology models where there was one to one mapping between the farm equipment’s and the management system.
[0027] FIG 1is a block diagram showing a herd management system in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The herd management system (100) may include several components that may be configured to perform various operations. The herd management system (100) comprises a data analytics module (101), an alert and notification module (102), a two way communication module (103), a data security module (104), and a business report generation module (105).
[0028] The data analytics module (101) is configured to analyze large amount of data collected in the herd management system. The data analytics module (101) perform real-time analysis of incoming data streams along with the existing recorded data and based on this real time analysis, the data analytics module (101) sends alerts and notifications to farmers and veterinarians. The data is categorized according to their source as in which information is received from which gateway (201) and from which farm. The herd management system (100) processes data according to specific events and specific parameters.
[0029] The alert and notification module (102) is configured to screen through large amount of data and send relevant information to specific users through Internet/Mobile Network (202). The notification module (102) sends alerts and notifications to end users (such as farmers, farm managers, agricultural extension staff, veterinarians, para-veterinarians) indicating issues or events in specific farms (e.g. clean-in-place not performed in a given farm). The notification module (102) also helps in decision making based on the available data and events received.
[0030] The two-way communication module (103) allows data to be transmitted from the farm gateway (201) to the herd management system(100) and transmits instructions or alerts from the herd management system(100) to the gateway (201). Hence the two way communication module (103) enables the automated capture and flow of data between the HMS, farm entities and the stakeholders through the Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network.
[0031] The data security module (104) maintains the privacy and confidentiality of all the users of herd management system (100) by not allowing data of one farm to be seen by the other farm. The business report generation module (105) is configured to generate reports on different parameters which are of interest to the end users (205).
[0032] The herd management system (100) has components like alert and notification module (102) which sends essential and specific information to concerned farmers. In this way farmers need not have to understand the intricacies of the management system itself because they are, at best, interested in the key farm/business parameters like productivity, health etc. Without having to wade through a large number of parameters that typically gets captured in a software system, these farmers get the required information. The alert and notification module (102) helps the farmers to achieve better decision making as analyzed and useful information is available to farmers in the form of alerts or modifications sent by the herd management system (100) hosted on cloud where the data is analyzed with the help of data analytics module (101).
[0033] FIG 2 is a block diagram which illustrates an exemplary network environment in which the herd management system or method is implemented in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention. In one embodiment, the herd management systemcomprises gateways (201) which is a low footprint device installed in each farm wherein the gateway (201) is configured to communicate with the herd management system (100) hosted in the cloud (203) via Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network (202). The farm-based gateway (201) is deployed in each farm and connected to various devices which are monitored or controlled or act as data sources.
[0034] The Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network (202) is a standard network which takes care of the whole communication system. The Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network (202) is configured to receive information from gateways (201) installed in each farm and sends it to herd management system (100) for storage and analysis.
[0035] The herd management system (100) is hosted on the cloud network (203). There are different modules deployed in the herd management system (100) which enables the system to identify source of each communication stream and uniquely identify the farm from which the data originates. The herd management system (100) is able to determine the target farm for which configuration and monitoring information has to be sent via Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network (202).
[0036] The end users (205) can be a farmer or any person engaged in farm activities. The end users (205) can access the herd management system (100) which is hosted on the cloud network (203) from any location. These end users (205) receive specific alerts, events and notifications from the herd management system (100) as and when required. The end users (205) also include experts who are able to look at the vast amount of data available in herd management system (100) analyze it and offer inputs remotely.
[0037] The herd management system (100) can be accessed by dairy experts or the end users (205) via Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network(203) who would get a comprehensive view of the entire farm data, thereby leveraging Internet's power of connecting distant knowledge-bases in accordance with laws and agreements corresponding to data sharing, security, authorization, privacy etc. In this way, end users (205) get insights and inputs of dairy experts which in turn help them to enhance their performance in farm.
[0038] The present invention provides the ease of data entry to end users (205) through herd management system application running on the mobile devices such as tablets, PDA etc., using Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs to update the data, which keeps the network connectivity requirement to a minimum and without the need to impose a web-UI based access to enter data manually. For instance, if an end user in a farm intends to update the medicines administered to a given cow, end users have the obvious mechanism of using the web-UI based access. However, with a mobile device such as tablets, PDA etc. and herd management system application running on any of the mobile devices, the ease of updating the data is significantly improved. Up gradation to future versions as and when they get released is transparent to the farmers. They do not need to specifically be concerned about software versions.
[0039] In the present invention any specific farm data which has to be entered manually may be entered without requiring significant effort of end users in the farm by providing remote services to be run in a shared service model such that end users can call using mobile and provide data orally.
[0040] The herd management system (100) apart from storing and managing the data received from gateways (201) installed in each farm via Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network(202), also performs data analysis to facilitate in decision making like the herd management system (100) sends specific alerts and notification to respective end users (205) which aids in better decision making. Hence, the herd management system facilitates automated delivery of information from the farm based equipment’s to the cloud based herd management system which avoids manual data entry work and requires less use of infrastructure. The present invention aids the end users that include farmers, dairy experts etc. to perform any work related to farm with greater efficiency and it reduces the overall cost incurred in farm activities. Hence the system provides the facilities at no additional cost to the farmer on procuring and maintaining a PC since an individual farm need not have any PC (personal computer) to be owned by a farmer and need not to maintain various versions of the software. The system provides automated exchange of data between the server hosted in cloud which may be accessed via Internet/Mobile Network and gateways deployed in farm hence avoids manual entry of data.
,CLAIMS:[0041] Claims
[0042] We claim:
1. A system for farm and herd management, the system comprising of:
a) a data analytic module(101) to perform automatic real-time analysis of incoming data received through a plurality of gateways(201)installed in a plurality of farms along with the existing recorded data;
b) an alert and notification module(102)to screen the data and sends relevant information to specific end users through the Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network (202) indicating issues or events in specific farms;
c) a two way communication module (103)to allow automated capture and flow of data between the plurality of farm gateways(201) and the herd management system (204) hosted on a cloud network(203);
d) a data security module(104) to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the end users of the herd management system (204) by not allowing data of one farm to be seen by the other farm; and
e) a business report generation module(105) configured to generate reports on different parameters which are of interest to the end users (205).
2. The system for farm and herd management as claimed in claim 1, wherein said system is hosted on servers on the cloud which may be accessed via Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network.
3. The system for farm and herd management as claimed in claim 1, wherein said data analytic module (101) processes data automatically according to specific events and specific parameters.
4. The system for farm and herd management as claimed in claim 1, wherein said alert and notification module (102) further assists in decision making based on the available data and events received.
5. The system for farm and herd management as claimed in claim 1, wherein said two way communication module (103) enables the automated capture and flow of data between the HMS, farm entities and the stakeholders through the Internet/Mobile Network/Cellular Network.
6. The system for farm and herd management as claimed in claim 1, wherein said end users (205) may be any of these but not limited to farmers, farm managers, agricultural extension staff, veterinarians, para-veterinarians etc.
7. The system for farm and herd management as claimed in claim 1, provides the ease of data entry to end users(205)through herd management system application running on the mobile devices such as tablets, handheld devices etc., which uses the Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs to update the data.
8. The system for farm and herd management as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said system enables the end users to access to international dairy experts to get a comprehensive view of the analysed and filtered data in the cloud based database in accordance with laws and agreements corresponding to data sharing, security, authorization, privacy etc.
9. A method for farm and herd management, wherein the method comprises the steps of:
a) installing the plurality of gateways in plurality of farms to communicate with herd management system hosted in the cloud;
b) configuring the mobile network to receive information from the gateways installed in each farm and sends the information to herd management system for storage and analysis;
c) allowing automated data capture and flow between the plurality of farms and herd management system updated by end users; and
d) monitoring and analyzing the data available in herd management system by end users and sending inputs remotely.

10. The method for farm and herd management, wherein said herd management system captures the information automatically from the farm.