Researchers from TAMIDS and Texas A&M AgriLife Research have received NVIDIA’s Academic Research Grant Award for their project, “Advancing Precision Livestock Management: NVIDIA-Powered Computer Vision System for Bovine Respiratory Disease Detection.” Drs. Karun Kaniyamattam (Assistant Professor at Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Animal Science), Jian Tao (Professor in the Department of Visualization), and Yalong Pi (Research Scientist at TAMIDS) have collaborated on this project to improve precision livestock management using innovative artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision techniques.
Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) is a significant cause of illness and mortality in beef cattle. However, with the help of computer vision, early detection is now possible, revolutionizing livestock management. This project automates detection using a multi-modal camera set-up, reducing reliance on subjective assessments. The goal is to develop an end-to-end Computer Vision System for BRD detection, analyzing real-time cattle pen videos to assess their DART (Depression, Appetite, Respiration, and Temperature) scores and alert farm managers to any abnormalities.
As part of this award, NVIDIA has offered 32,000 A100 GPU-Hours on Saturn Cloud, an impressive amount of computing power for training and deploying deep learning models. The project team hopes to have the final results in 2026 and present their findings at the AI in Agriculture and the U.S. Precision Livestock Farming conferences.
By bringing together experts from diverse disciplines, this project exemplifies the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to uncover impactful solutions. This project not only promises to transform livestock management but also serves as an example of how AI drives innovation and discovery.