Cows get 5G-connected before humans

Although humans don’t have complete access to 5G till yet, cows do now. In a first, scientists have 5G-connected cows in order to test milking parlor of future.

A networking hardware company Cisco is testing infrastructure for the ultimate global rollout of 5G that could be used by different industries apart from technological ones but dependent on increasingly sophisticated hardware and software, such as farming.

For this, Cisco is trying out 5G in three rural locations by providing farming access to 5G-connected cow collars and health-monitoring ear tags that are able to transmit biometric data and help workers monitor the herd of cows from afar, reported Reuters.

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Also, the 5G smart collars help automate the milking process by wirelessly communicating with a robotic milking system that allows the cow approach the station at its own leisure when it feels the need to be milked, pass through the gates after an ID check and hook up to the robot, where the cow’s collar will alert the machine to begin pumping, all without any human intervention.

As a plus point, the smart gadgets do not even harm the cows and the monitoring allows the handlers to see signs of distress if there are any. The 5G-connected cows were tested in three sites including in a small town located in southwest England, which now has nearly one-third of its 180-cow herd fitted with the 5G collars and tags.

“We can connect every cow, we can connect every animal on this farm,” Cisco’s Nick Chrissos. “That’s what 5G can do for farming — really unleash the power that we have within this farm, everywhere around the UK and everywhere around the world.”