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Accelerometer-Based Vigilance State Classification In Dairy Cows, Evan King

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Globally, dairy farming is a $700 billion industry, with more than 9 million dairy cows in the United States alone. Depriving cows of required activities such as sleep has been shown to negatively impact reproductive efficiency, decrease the volume of milk produced, and increase the risk of culling. Overcrowded herds can decrease individual animal health, demanding the need for automatic behavior detection that would provide insight into their state of health.

Using electroencephalography (EEG), electrooculography (EOG), and electromyography (EMG) to characterize the phases of sleep is a technique which has been used for decades. While these techniques are considered the …