CowScreeningDB: A public benchmark dataset for lameness detection in dairy cows
This provides a public benchmark for objective lameness detection in dairy farming, addressing a costly problem, but is incremental as it focuses on dataset creation rather than novel detection methods.
The authors tackled the lack of a public dataset for lameness detection in dairy cows by introducing CowScreeningDB, a multi-sensor dataset from 43 cows, and validated it with a machine-learning technique that classifies cows as healthy or lame.
Lameness is one of the costliest pathological problems affecting dairy animals. It is usually assessed by trained veterinary clinicians who observe features such as gait symmetry or gait parameters as step counts in real-time. With the development of artificial intelligence, various modular systems have been proposed to minimize subjectivity in lameness assessment. However, the major limitation in their development is the unavailability of a public dataset which is currently either commercial or privately held. To tackle this limitation, we have introduced CowScreeningDB which was created using sensory data. This dataset was sourced from 43 cows at a dairy located in Gran Canaria, Spain. It consists of a multi-sensor dataset built on data collected using an Apple Watch 6 during the normal daily routine of a dairy cow. Thanks to the collection environment, sampling technique, information regarding the sensors, the applications used for data conversion and storage make the dataset a transparent one. This transparency of data can thus be used for further development of techniques for lameness detection for dairy cows which can be objectively compared. Aside from the public sharing of the dataset, we have also shared a machine-learning technique which classifies the caws in healthy and lame by using the raw sensory data. Hence validating the major objective which is to establish the relationship between sensor data and lameness.