THE USE OF IMAGE LABELLING TO IDENTIFY PIG BEHAVIOURS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A REAL-TIME MONITORING AND CONTROL TOOL

The behaviour of animals is the most informative indicator of the farm status, reflecting animal responses to the change of their welfare, health or surrounding environment. Complex and continuously changing animal responses could be monitored through automated and real time measurements offered by PLF. The most crucial component of an effective PLF system is a precise real-time algorithm able to detect, quantify or even predict the target behaviour, considering that animals are individually different in their responses. During the process of the development of such an algorithm the input of the expertise in animal ethology and biology is indispensable. Understanding of biological mechanisms is a key element in comprehension of the message given by animal behaviour. One of the most important contributions of the specialist with biological background in algorithm development is labelling.This thesis was particularly dedicated to the labelling and its importance in the process of the development of successful PLF system. The objective of this thesis was application of image labelling technique to contribute to the development of an automatic PLF systems to monitor behaviours of pigs.