Revolutionizing Beef Production

24 Dec, 2020

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The past year has been one of unexpected challenge as our nation and the world was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our thoughts are with those who suffered during this difficult time, whether through losing a job or business, losing a loved one, or struggling with illness themselves. We are thankful that the end is in sight, with vaccines being distributed and public health measures in place. Our team is excited to share our recent progress now that we have entered this new time of hope. Our primary line of effort for 2020 was advancing our functional prototype to a refined Roper® system ready for pilot studies and pre-sales. This required developing a smaller ear-tag, developing new firmware for the ear-tag, and developing the software that provides the interface between the secure Roper® network and the Internet. Our pilot study preview video demonstrates these advances along with our new cloud database. The straightforward nature of this system is a testament to the hard work required to make it operate seamlessly and easily. The final element of our beta prototype is our mobile app to map the cattle using the data collected from each ear-tag and stored in the cloud database. While there are other apps for managing cattle, none provide near real-time GPS location and health information of cattle at pasture. Delivering continuous tracking and monitoring of free-ranging cattle to a mobile app is a major technological advancement and will enable ranchers to pinpoint animals that are sick or distressed, maximize herd fertility with estrus detection, optimize grazing plans, and automate recordkeeping. Our team has already created the first version of the app software for in-house development and we look forward to debuting the finished app soon. This research and development was enabled by groundbreaking work on ultra-low-power networking and communications. Our collaboration with colleagues at the University of New Mexico led to two peer-reviewed publications this year, the first on adaptive data rate techniques and the second on secure ultra-low-power mesh networking . A third publication on remote firmware updates over our low-power wide area network is in the works and planned for publication in 2021. This body of research adds to the Roper intellectual property portfolio and was reflected in our second patent filing this year. We are proud of our progress this year and grateful that we had the means and ability to achieve it. The Roper team deeply appreciates the ongoing support of our friends and partners and looks forward to a prosperous and productive 2021.