IMPROVED METHOD AND RELEVANT APPARATUS FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE BODY CONDITION SCORE, BODY WEIGHT AND STATE OF FERTILITY

• US 20180042584A1
• Filed: 02/26/2016
• Published: 02/15/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Livestock 3D SA
• Original Assignee: Ingenera SA
• Inventors: BIONDI, ANDREA
• Granted Patent: US 10,639,014 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: A01K 29/005 Monitoring or measuring activity, e.g. detecting heat or mating
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 10/0012 Ovulation-period determination for animals A61D17/002
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2010/0019 based on measurement of temperature
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2503/40 Animals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2562/0219 Inertial sensors, e.g. accelerometers, gyroscopes, tilt switches
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2562/0223 Magnetic field sensors
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/01 Measuring temperature of body parts ; Diagnostic temperature sensing, e.g. for malignant or inflamed tissue clinical contact thermometers G01K13/20
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1077 Measuring of profiles
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1079 using optical or photographic means
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4872 Body fat
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7253 characterised by using transforms
• CPC Class Codes: A61D 17/00 Devices for indicating trouble during labour of animals ; Methods or instruments for detecting pregnancy-related states of animals monitoring or measuring activity of animals A01K29/005
• CPC Class Codes: A61D 17/002 for detecting period of heat of animals, i.e. for detecting oestrus for humans A61B10/0012

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for calculating the body condition score—BCS, the weight of an animal and its state of fertility by means of the mathematical processing of some characteristic morphological traits of the observed subject, which makes use of at least one contact or no-contact detection device of the profile 109 of the animal, at least a data processing unit and a program that implements a specific mathematical method of interpretation. By such a method, the determination of the body condition and its synthetic index or fattening index or FI, is independent of species, race, gender, age and absolute size of the examined animal. This method is also robust to possible errors of positioning of the apparatus by an operator.

Claims

1. Method for determination of an numeric index indicative of the energy reserves in the form of fat stored by an animal (107) dead or living of any species and race, including humans, for example the body condition score or the body mass index, characterized in that the following steps are performed:

A. digitally detecting, by means of optical detection of reference elements, applied or projected on the body of the observed subject, or by another type of detection system, with contact or without contact, of at least a profile (109) of an anatomical region of morphological interest, said at least a profile being defined as the shape of the curve that describes at least part of the outer perimeter of a section of said anatomical region, such a curve lying on an imaginary plane intersecting said anatomical region;

B. sending said at least a profile (109) of the step A to at least one data processing unit (E);

C. Calculating a numerical index R indicative of the energy reserves in the form of fat accumulated by the animal, in particular in said anatomical region, by at least a data processing unit (E) on the basis of said at least a profile (109) of step A;

D. correlating, in said at least one data processing unit (E), by means of a predefined mathematical transform, said numeric index R with one or more state features of said animal.

2. Method according to claim 1, wherein in step D the numerical parameters of said mathematical transform depend at least by species and/or race and/or ethnicity and/or age of the subject and are obtained by comparison with a reference population evaluated according to a traditional method or a different measurement method of the prior art.

3. Method according to claim 2, wherein in step D the following substep is performed:

D1. correlating, by means of a first pre-defined mathematical transform, for example a linear transform, said numeric index R of step C with a visual and tactile scale of scores, such as for example the linear scoring or the body condition score of known use, in particular known in the traditional evaluation of body condition of production animals, affection animals, and man, and being obtained by comparison with a reference population evaluated by technical experts and/or by other means known in the art.

4. Method according to claim 1, wherein after step C the following further step is performed:

E. correlating, using a second pre-defined mathematical transform, said numeric index R of step C, with the animal'"'"'s weight, said mathematical transform depending at least on species and/or race and/or gender and/or age of the animal and being obtained by comparison with a reference population weighted by means of appropriate scales.

5. Method according to claim 1, wherein after step C the following further step is performed:

F. correlating, by means of a further predefined mathematical transform, said numerical index R of step C with the degree of fertility of the subject under examination, resulting from the combination between the numerical index Rand the state of estrus, detected by means of tools of the prior art.

6. Method according to claim 1, wherein said profile is a profile of an anatomical region chosen in the group comprising the lumbar (L), abdominal (A), sacral (S), femoral (F), breast (P), gluteal (G), dorsal (D) region or the skull of the animal (107), in particular in their middle zone (M).

7. Method according to claim 1, wherein said imaginary plane is a plane transverse to the spine of the animal.

8. Method according to claim 1, wherein the detection system is a profilometer, such as triangulation scanners (e.g. laser lines with optical recording), time of flight and phase difference scanners or the comb gauges or flexometer sensors.

9. Method according to claim 1, wherein on the body of the animal a first side (LS or RS) of said anatomical region with respect to the backbone of the animal (S) is present or a first side and a second side (LS, RS) of said anatomical region with respect to the spine (S) of the animal are present, and wherein said profile includes a point of relative maximum P_M on the spine of the animal and a first development of the profile (109L or 109R) on said first side or a first and a second development of the profile (109L and 109R) respectively on said first and second side (LS, RS), wherein said step C includes the following sub-steps:

C1. individuating the coordinates of the relative maximum point P_M of said profile;

C2. determining a first straight line (β

) tangent to said profile (109), said first straight line starting from the relative maximum point PM and touching said profile at a first point of tangency P₁ of said first side, or in addition to the first straight line of tangency determining also a second straight line of tangency (α

) running from the point of relative maximum P_M and touching said profile at a second point of tangency P′

₁ on said second side;

C3. in the case in which in step 2 only said first tangent point P₁ has been calculated, taking as the second development (109L, 109R) of said profile the specular projection of said first development with respect to the direction of the spine, and assuming as the second point of tangency P′

₁ the point specular to said first point of tangency P₁ with respect to the direction of the spine;

C4. calculating a first broken line point P₂ and a second broken line point P′

₂ as the intersection between said profile and a straight line (γ

) parallel to a base segment which goes from P₁ to P′

₁;

C5. calculating said numeric index R as;

R=f(α

₁, α

₂, α

′

₁, ═

′

₂)

wherein α

₂ is the angle between the segment P_MP₂ and P₂P′

₂, α

₁ is the angle between the segments P₂P₁ and P₁P′

₁, α

₂ is the angle between the segments P_MP′

₂ and P′

₂P₂, α

′

₁ the angle between the segments P′

₂P′

₁ and P′

₁P₁, and wherein α

₂=α

′

₂ and α

′

₁=α

′

₁ in case of the assumption of step C3 has been made.

10. Method according to claim 9, wherein in step C5 first a synthetic index RL, relevant to said first development (109L) and a synthetic index R_R relevant to said second development (109R) are calculated as

R_L=f(α

₁, α

₂), R_R=f(α

′

₁, α

′

₂)

and then;

11. Method according to claim 9, wherein:

R=f(α

₁, α

₂)

or;

12. Method according to claim 11, wherein:

13. Method according to claim 9, wherein the parallel straight line (γ

) s positioned in such a way that the line perpendicular to said parallel straight line (γ

) and passing through P_M intersects on said parallel straight line a point P_H and on said base segment a point P_B such that the segment P_HP_B is substantially equal to the segment P_MP_H.

14. Method according to claim 1, characterized in that the profile detected in step A is sent to a control unit ( 101), that carries out its compression and associates to it further data concerning said animal (107), and subsequently sends it to said at least one data processing unit (E), local or remote.

15. Method according to claim 14, characterized in that said further data are data detected by one or more sensors, in particular chosen in the set comprising:

accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, thermometer, GPS, Wi-Fi locator, RFID (radio frequency identification) reader, RTLS (real time locating system) locator, detection system of state of oestrus and personal details of the animal (107).

16. Method according to claim 3, characterized in that said body condition score, prime body mass index or other scale of scores for the body condition, once the species and/or the ethnic group and/or the breed and/or sex are fixed, is obtainable from the numeric index R or synthetic fattening index, by means of a function of the type:

17. The apparatus (D) for the determination of a numerical index indicative of energy reserves in the form of fat accumulated by an animal (107), comprising at least a contact or non-contact detection system (102, 103, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130) for the detection of the a profile (109) of the animal (107), at least a control unit ( 101) and at least one data processing unit (E), local or remote, connected to said control unit ( 101), wherein said data processing unit (E), local or remote, includes a program so configured that, when executed, performs steps C and D of the method according to any one of claims 1 to 16.

18. Apparatus (D) according to claim 17, characterized in that said contact or non-contact detection system for detecting the profile (109) of the animal (107) can be alternately:

a) a camera (102) adapted to acquire images of one or more animals (107) with the profiles (109) highlighted by projection of coherent or not coherent light pattern or by beforehand application of paint or suitable adhesive or elastic bands on the body of the animal, said camera (102) being connected to said control unit ( 101), which integrates functions of digitization of the images and/or data compression and encryption and/or user interfacing, and/or data transmission;

b) an apparatus (PG) comprising a suitable number of needles (126) movable in a direction and at least one digitizing system (127) for digitizing the position of said needles, wherein said movable needles are configured to lean on the body of the animal (107), describing a profile (109) with a resolution proportional to their number, and wherein said digitizing system (127) is configured to convert the dislocation of said needles into an electrical signal processable by said data processing unit (E);

c) an apparatus (SG) comprising at least one band (131) sensitive to flexure, composed by a plurality of electronic strain gauges (130), and at least one signal digitizing system for digitizing the signal produced by said electronic strain gauges, wherein said band (131) sensitive to flexure is applied on the surface or under the animal skin (107), and by means of the electronic strain gauges (130) is configured to detect the expansion (132) or the compression (133) along the direction perpendicular to the spine the animal (107), in order to describe a profile (109) with a resolution proportional to the number of strain gauges integrated in said band (131), said electronic strain gauges being connected to said data processing unit (E).

19. Apparatus (D) according to claim 17, further comprising at least one position sensor (P) configured to detect the positioning of said apparatus (D) with respect to the position of said animal (107).

20. The apparatus (D) according to claim 17, wherein said apparatus (D) is portable and includes:

an extension arm (105) adapted to be hold at a first end and that supports said control system ( 101), such as for example a smartphone, wherein said camera is integrated (102), on a second end;

a laser arm (104) connectable to a first end to said extension arm (105) with which it forms for example a 135°

angle, and comprising said laser generator (103) on a second end; and

an actuator (106), disposed on said first end of said extension arm (105), configured to control said laser generator (103).

21. The apparatus (D) according to claim 17, characterized in that it comprises alternately a sensor of animal presence in a predetermined area, said sensor of the animal'"'"'s presence sending its detection to said control unit ( 101) for the startup of step C of the method, or a reader of an identifying tag placed on said animal, said identifying tag reader being connected to said control unit ( 101).

22. The apparatus (D) according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises a system for detection of the estrus state of the animal according to prior art techniques, the combination of body condition score with the state of estrus providing a new indicator here defined as fertility index, determined according to the following formula: