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At PLF-Hub, we are convinced that rapid technological development and innovation in livestock husbandry offers the prospect of meeting future demands for food in a sustainable and welfare friendly manner.

PLF-Hub addresses new risks for animal health, welfare and production by development of PLF technologies which we define as tools for management of livestock by continuous, automated real-time, monitoring of production/reproduction, health and welfare of livestock and environmental impact.

The University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria recognized the emergence of Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) technologies and new challenges related to digitalization in modern livestock farming.

Digitalization in animal monitoring was named as one of the key action areas impacting all three missions, i.e. research, education, and knowledge transfer at the Vetmeduni. Against a backdrop of digitalization and emergence of new technologies, the Vetmeduni is fortifying its infrastructure for research and teaching through new investments. Among those is establishment of a new research group called Precision Livestock Farming Hub (PLF-Hub) in June 2019 within the Department for Farm Animals and Veterinary Public Health.

PLF-Hub focuses on three major area in research on livestock monitoring: solution-oriented research, integration of key welfare, health and production indicators and also wider adoption of image analysis. These major research areas will be supplemented by validation studies on open datasets and advances in robotics.

PLF-Hub research aims to substantially advance the livestock farming sector as well as improve the economic stability of rural areas. PLF-Hub focuses on validation of developed PLF tools (real-time algorithms) on its network of associated commercial farms. Interaction between the user, the animal and technology is at the centre of interest at PLF-Hub. In this context, the activities of the PLF-Hub are aimed at contributing to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDG ), in particular to ‘No Poverty’ (G1), ‘Zero Hunger’ (G2), ‘Good Health and Well-being’ (G3), ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’ (G6), ‘Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure’ (G9), ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’ (G12), ‘Climate Action’ (G13) and ‘Life on Land’ (G15).

Researchers at the PLF-Hub develop technology from TRL1 to TRL 6. Thus, 1) start from basic research - observation of basic principles and concept development 2) focus on applied research - proof of concept, technology validation in lab, technology validation in operation, to finally demonstrate technology in operation. In most projects scientists at the PLF-Hub will rely on basic research that has already been done by the scientists at the partner research groups. The main focus at the PLF-Hub will be on applied research with algorithm development and validation. In selected projects algorithms will be implemented in real-time at least at VetFarm the research farm of Vetmeduni Vienna with dashboards providing overview of outputs of the algorithms.

Our offices are located at Vetmeduni Campus in Vienna and at VetFarm, one hour drive from Vienna, where engineering research staff works in close collaboration with vets and animal scientists.

Focus of our research is on validation of developed models on real-time data collected on our research farms, presentation of results in real-time dashboards and exploration of relationship between users of PLF technology and the animals on farms.

In our List of Projects you will find exciting examples of our research.

List of projects

PLF-Hub together with its core collaborative partners at Vetmeduni (BBT and ITT) has published over 40 scientific publications in international journals, conference proceedings and books in the last few years. We are collaborating with many scientific teams worldwide.

List of publications

You are invited to visit our offices at Vetmeduni Campus in Vienna and at VetFarm, Kremesberg, Lower Austria. Our office at VetFarm is located in particularly scenic countryside area.   

Enjoy our webpages and don’t hesitate to contact us whenever you wish.

Kind regards,

Maciej Oczak

Coordinator of PLF-Hub