You've probably heard of the Xbox Kinect — a camera that allows users to play video games without a controller, using their whole body as a controller instead. Even if you aren't an avid video-gamer, you may have seen it being used, but chances are you haven't seen it being used to monitor pig behavior.

Brothers Lukas and Brenden Fricke are doing just that at Union Farms, their farm near Ulysses, as part of a research project with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Animal Science Department and the Perceptual Systems Research Group in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

3D RECONSTRUCTION: "Using Kinect, you not only get a color image, but depth representation," says Eric Psota. "It's a 3D reconstruction from one view of the environment." (Photos courtesy of Eric Psota)

"Using Kinect, you not only get a color image, but depth representation," says Eric Psota, electrical and computer engineering research assistant professor. "It's a 3D reconstruction from one view of the environment. Using what we know about the dimensions of the pig pen — it's rectangular and flat — we can use that knowledge to transform the system of the Kinect to the points in the background."

By monitoring the movement of pigs' heads and tails, the camera is capable of tracking up to 15 pigs for an average of 15 to 20 minutes before interruption.

"It's a set of eyes to see everything," says Lukas. "It may not be the same as everyday human interaction with pigs, but it's the next best thing. There are a lot of applications it could be used for down the road. I think it's one of the most innovative tools in studying animal behavior that's ever been seen."

KINECT IN A HOG BARN: Even if you aren't an avid video-gamer, you may have seen an Xbox Kinect camera being used. However, chances are you haven't seen it mounted in a hog.

"As time goes on, it's more important to quantify everything to make correct decisions. That can make or break you at the end of the day. When we can have a system like this in the barns, our efficiency factor goes way up," adds Brenden. "I think pig care and pig performance will be a lot better in the end. As producers, that's our responsibility to raise the highest-quality pig in the most comfortable way possible."

Multi-disciplinary approach
How did researchers get the idea to monitor pigs with a video game camera? Psota had been using wearable technology to track human behavior, but ran into some challenges in finding research cooperators.

"It takes a lot of money and convincing to get people to sign up for it. There's a lot of red tape before you can even begin to deal with the interesting problems," Psota says.

That's when they realized there were researchers in the Animal Science Department studying ways to track livestock behavior, which brought Psota to East Campus.

"When we went to East Campus, we thought initially we would be tracking feedlot cattle. Ty Schmidt [assistant professor of muscle biology/physiology in UNL's Animal Science Department] eventually approached us and steered us toward pigs."

Hog barns are already well-suited for a camera like the Kinect, which can be mounted above a pen. In comparison, it's tough to monitor cattle in larger pens in feedlots or on pasture with the Kinect, which can't monitor objects outside of a range of 8 meters.

The Kinect is also much more affordable than the kind of cameras typically used for research, which can come with a $1,000 to $5,000 price tag. "Right now, the price point on Amazon for a Kinect is $90. It's certainly not cost-prohibitive," adds Psota. "Our goal is to have one of these mounted above each pen."

Tracking behavior in real time
How does this technology benefit pork producers? The possibilities are endless, Schmidt says, but the initial goal in this project is to use Kinect to identify ill or injured pigs early.

"The goal is to develop algorithms to detect sick pigs before the human eye can," Schmidt explains. "If the system allows producers the ability to identify illness or injury earlier, we can intervene with treatment before the viral or bacterial infection overloads the immune system. The system may be able to identify an injured a leg, allowing producers the ability to intervene and move it to an environment where it can get over that injury a lot faster."

But Kinect can also be used to pick out different behavioral patterns in pigs — for example, picking out more aggressive pigs from more docile ones. Using this information, it may be possible to place pigs with similar behavioral patterns in the same pens to optimize feeding habits and minimize injury to pigs.

So far, Schmidt says, the project has generated over 14 days' worth of video. "We had one pig that walked 1,095 meters in five hours, and we had one that walked 41 meters," he says. "There's big difference in how they're using energy. One's eating and lying down; one's moving throughout the pen fighting everybody."

"We're hoping it can be a real-time tool. There are a lot of systems where you can get information, but you can't access the information until you download the information," says Schmidt. "From what we've been able to see so far, I think the system has real potential to be a real-time solution to help the producer."