Professor Daniel Berckmans has been associated with the Katholieke University of Leuven, Belgium for 40 years where he was Head of the M3-BIORES (Measure, Model and Manage Bioresponses) Division for over 20 years as a full professor. His team is widely regarded as a world leader in precision livestock farming, producing over 350 publications and over 450 conference papers, with 17 new products brought to market in collaboration with industrial partners and 20 patents submitted. Professor Berckmans is also editor of Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing’s previous volume Advances in precision livestock farming (published in 2022).

Dr Tomás Norton is Associate Professor of Sustainable Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) in the Division of Animal and Human and Health Engineering and research group of M3-BIORES, at Katholieke University of Leuven, Belgium. He has co-authored over 100 publications, over 50 conference proceedings and 10 book chapters. Dr Norton is also Chair of Section II and Technical Board of the International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (CIGR) and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. Dr Norton is also Series editor of the Springer Nature Book Series: Smart Animal Production.

Part 1 Technologies for monitoring and data analysis

• 1.The use of biosensors for monitoring dairy cattle: Seongwon Seo, Chungnam National University, South Korea;
• 2.The use of thermal imaging techniques to monitor dairy cattle: Jérôme Bindelle, University of Liège, Belgium;
• 3.The use of machine vision technologies to monitor the behaviour of dairy cattle: Oleksiy Guzhva, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden;
• 4.Remote/proximal monitoring of pasture quality: Miles Grafton, Massey University, New Zealand;
• 5.Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in precision dairy farming: Kees Lokhorst, Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands;
• 6.Unsupervised learning techniques in precision dairy farming: Sébastien Franceschini, University of Liege, Belgium;

Part 2 Technologies for monitoring and managing milk production

• 7.Developments in monitoring somatic cell count (SCC) technologies: Zhaoju Deng, Utrecht University, The Netherlands;
• 8.Developments in milk component/quality monitoring technologies: Jose A. Diaz-Olivares, Katholieke University of Leuven, Belgium;
• 9.Developments in milk yield monitoring technologies: Dan B. Jensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark;
• 10.Advances in robotic milking systems: Alex Bach, ICREA, Spain;

Part 3 Applications for monitoring and managing nutrition, health and welfare

• 11.Developments in automated feeding technologies: Carlo Bisaglia, Council for Research and Analysis of Agricultural Economics (CREA), Italy;
• 12.Developments in technologies for monitoring housing/environmental conditions: Marco Bovo, University of Bologna, Italy;
• 13.Developments in technologies for monitoring the health of dairy cattle: Melissa Cantor, Penn State University, USA;
• 14.Advances in monitoring natural behaviour and affective states/emotions: Angelika Haeussermann, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel, Germany;
• 15.Developments in technologies for monitoring reproduction in dairy cows: Miel Hostens, Utrecht University, The Netherlands;
• 16.Developments in virtual herding/herd management technologies: Megan Verdon, University of Tasmania, Australia;