This Drone Can Herd Sheep As Well As A Sheepdog

They say that one day machines could replace humans in terms of jobs and to a certain extent, some of that is already true. For example some machines have replaced the need for humans in a factory’s assembly line, and in the future the job of delivery people could also be replaced by drones, but what about machines replacing animals?

No, we’re not talking about Sony’s beloved Aibo, but rather a drone that can actually be used to help herd sheep together, much like how a sheepdog would. This was done recently by sheep farmer Paul Brennan who figured out how he could use a drone to help herd his sheep together and move them from one field to the other without much effort.

Dubbed SHEP the Drone, it seems that the sound emitted from the drone during the operations was enough for the sheep to want to get away from it. Could drones potentially replace the need for sheepdogs? Speaking from an efficiency point of view, we don’t see why not, however a sheepdog has more than one use and is a great companion to people as well, so unless you have absolutely no need for a dog, then perhaps using a drone could be an alternative. In the meantime you can check out the drone in action in the video above.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Robots
Tags: Drones