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About

Jaan Praks is a pioneering researcher in precision livestock farming, with a particular focus on the automated monitoring and welfare assessment of dairy cattle. His body of work spans more than a decade of innovation, consistently addressing one of agriculture's most pressing challenges: how to efficiently and accurately track the health and wellbeing of individual animals within large commercial herds. Praks has made significant contributions through the development of sensor-based and imaging technologies integrated into milking robot systems. His research on force and load sensors for detecting lameness — one of the most economically damaging conditions in dairy farming — has been widely influential, with related papers accumulating over 100 citations combined. His 2005 study on weighing cows during robotic milking (69 citations) and his 2012 infrared thermal imaging work (65 citations), conducted across a 120-cow experimental herd at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, demonstrated novel, contactless approaches to health surveillance with high spatial and thermal resolution. Collectively, Praks has helped establish the scientific foundation for smart, data-driven cattle farming, enabling early disease detection and reduced veterinary intervention. His interdisciplinary work bridges animal science, biosensing engineering, and agricultural automation, making him a key figure in the advancement of precision livestock management systems.