Data from: Animal-robot interaction in the field: stronger responses and slower habituation of grazing cattle to a quadruped robot than to a drone
Abstract
This dataset contains behavioural response data from field experiments on robotic herding of Japanese Black breeding cows conducted at the Sumiyoshi Livestock Science Station, University of Miyazaki, Japan (May–October 2023). Two datasets are included: (1) comparison trial data comparing herding efficacy of a drone and a quadruped robot (n = 22 cows, 266 approach events), and (2) continuous trial data tracking daily changes in behavioural responses during consecutive quadruped robot herding and following a 24-day interruption (n = 24 cows, 823 approach events). Variables include individual ID, device type, acoustic stimulus, first behavioural response category, latency to first response, flight occurrence, and herding success. Version 2: corrected the herding_success column. When a cow was approached more than once in a session, the final outcome is now recorded (version 1 used only the code on the first approach, so many outcomes were coded as unknown). All other columns are unchanged.