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, Korea; Mingyung Lee, Texas A&M University, USA; and Sungmin Park, Rural Development Administration, Korea;
• 2.The use of thermal imaging techniques to monitor dairy cattle: Hang Shu, China Agricultural University, China; and Frédéric Lebeau and Jérôme Bindelle, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech – University of Liége, Belgium;
• 3.The use of computer vision technologies for monitoring the behavior of dairy cattle: Oleksiy Guzhva, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden; Marwa Mahmoud and Ozgur Civan Dogan, University of Glasgow, UK; David Berthet, Sony Nordic (Sweden), Sweden; and Niclas Högberg, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden;
• 4.Remote sensing of pasture quality: the case of New Zealand hill farming: T. A. Cushnahan, Massey University and AgResearch Ltd, New Zealand; and M. C. E. Grafton, Massey University, New Zealand;
• 5.Internet of Things technologies in precision dairy farming: Kees Lokhorst, Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands; and Jurgen Vangeyte, Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Belgium;
• 6.Unsupervised machine learning techniques in precision dairy farming: C. Nickmilder, H. Soyeurt and I. Alexakis, University of Liège, Belgium; T. Przybylski, Walloon Agricultural Research Centre, Belgium; M. Gertz, LKV Schleswig-Holstein, Germany; and S. Franceschini, University of Liège, Belgium;

Part 2 Technologies for monitoring and managing milk production

• 7.Developments in monitoring somatic cell count technologies: Zhaoju Deng, China Agricultural University, China;
• 8.Developments in milk component quality monitoring technologies: Jose A. Diaz-Olivares, Arnout van Nuenen and Ben Aernouts, Katholieke University of Leuven, Belgium;
• 9.Developments in sensor-based milk monitoring: assessing mastitis: Dan B. Jensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark;
• 10.Advances in robotic milking systems: Alex Bach, University of Lleida, Spain; and Héctor Salas, GEA, Spain;

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

• 11.Developments in automated feeding technologies: Carlo Bisaglia and Massimo Brambilla, Centre for Engineering and Agro-Food Processing – Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Italy;
• 12.Developments in technologies for monitoring housing conditions for dairy and beef cattle: Marco Bovo, University of Bologna, Italy;
• 13.Developments in technologies for monitoring the health of dairy cattle: B. J. Bone and M. C. Cantor, The Pennsylvania State University, USA;
• 14.Advances in monitoring emotions and affective states: Angelika Haeussermann, Institute of Agricultural Engineering – Kiel University, Germany;
• 15.Modeling the lactation curves of dairy ruminants: Meike B. van Leerdam, Cornell University, USA; Lucia Trapanese, University of Naples Federico II, Italy; Chen Yongyan, Guangzhou Nansha Modern Agriculture Industry Group Co., China; Kristof Hermans and Matthieu Salamone, Ghent University, Belgium; and Enhong Liu and Miel Hostens, Cornell University, USA;
• 16.Virtual fencing and herding to manage grazing cattle: Megan Verdon, University of Tasmania, Australia; Megan Willis, South Australian Research and Development Institute and Adelaide University, Australia; and Caroline Lee, Agriculture and Food – CSIRO, Australia;