Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is a short-distance sensor technology for identification and tracking objects, which was widely used in many industries such as Warehouse and Medical Managements. For transmitting the object information collecting from RFID system, Zigbee Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) provides a communication interface with PC-based system management platform based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard network protocol. The Zigbee provides a low-power, effective short-distance, and self-organizing mesh network which is suitable for the use of smaller data transmission.
Our milking management system has successfully integrated RFID and Zigbee technologies for effective recognizing the identification (ID) number of a milk cow before performing milking processes through two RFID readers deployed at sides of the entrance, receiving correct health statuses of four udders from a database built in the system management center through Zigbee network, and showing its statuses by LED-based information board at cow-side. The cow database of the management system also records the treatment information with both clinical and non-clinical mastitis. It is useful to the labor for recording mastitis statuses of udders and reducing the risk of total milk contaminated by high somatic cell counts and antibiotics during milking due to manual errors.
