An electronic framework to shepherd the pastorals livestock (Resolve Conflicts in pastorals community) Frezewd Lemma , Anteneh Alemu, Desta Zerihun, Endale Aragu Computer Science and Engineering Program Adama Science and Technology University Adama, Ethiopia {firstname.lastname}@astu.edu.et Web: http://astu.edu.et Abstract—This paper proposes a tracking framework based on GPS enabled location sensors, the GSM/WCDMA wireless network, and algorithms running in an edge clouds to resolve deadly conflicts that arise in the Africans pastorals community. The paper also proposes an automatic digital identification mechanism that helps resolve conflicts during animals mix- up. This algorithmic based solution would totally relief the community from using the traditional identification mechanisms such as hot branding which are known to be cruel to animals. To communicate with the pastorals, the framework takes into consideration the low level literacy of the community as well as their use of low end mobile devices. Moreover, very low economy status, different environments of three kinds of livestocks, day and night variations of animal movements are all factored into the design of the algorithms. This paper shows the general architecture of the system and algorithms to shepherd camels. In a subsequent paper we will add algorithms to shepherd sheep, goats and cattle. Moreover, we will evaluate the solution using simulated as well as real deployments. Keywords: Tracking, electronic shepherd, algorithmic conflict resolution, edge cloud, corrals, sensors, GSM, GPS I. I NTRODUCTION This document describes a novel design approach to quickly recover stolen animals and resolve conflicts — that happen due to livestock identification problem and grazing land com- petition — on-the-spot in the pastoral community of Ethiopia. The approach use a modern tracking technology, an existing wireless network, a distributed data store and a simple mobile based user interface which is appropriate for the low literacy level of the pastoral community in the area. The livelihood of the pastoral community is based on animal rearing. Specifically, they breed camels, cattle, sheep and goats. They don’t have a sedentary life. Instead, they drive their animals from place to place in search of water and grass over long distances. Although the area of movement is very large, it occurs in a known and informally reserved for a given community. Most of the time, the area of movement is characterized by hot temperature and distributed small bushes as well as tall and horny trees. The pastoral communities organized themselves around families and tribes. Usually three to four families in a tribe tend to keep and drive their animals together. The tribes create a system of networks throughout the area, and they use a traditional way of communicating with each other to resolve problems, specially animal rustling. Recently the community started to use the mobile communication service of Ethiotelecom, which is the only mobile service provider in Ethiopia and has a 99% coverage of GSM and WCDMA in most of the pastorals area. The availability of such a network provides an opportunity to establish a tracking and identifi- cation mechanism without incurring a big cost to establish a communication infrastructure. The pastoral communities constantly face conflicts due to animal rustling, animal theft, competition for grazing land and animal identification problems. The conflicts often results in loss of human life. These conflicts occur between tribes and different region peoples. The way the pastorals make their living exacerbates the problem. Pastorals need to feed their large number of animals relatively in a large area compared to sedentary farmers. This mode of animal breeding is highly vulnerable to animal rustling and identification problem due to lack of real time visibility to the animals by their shepherds and owners. Traditionally, pastorals use traditional mechanisms to re- solve conflicts and animal rustling issues. The primary mech- anism being mediation through elderly people. The second one is using force to recover their stolen animals. The last option is to get assistance from a nearby law enforcement institutes, if available. All those solutions are not effective in terms of speed of recovery and providing resolution on the spot. In contrast,the solution proposed in this work, addresses theft before the stolen animals are completely disappear from the pastorals vicinity and provide conflict resolution on the spot. Likewise, pastorals address the identification problem through traditional mechanisms: hot iron branding, ear notches, paint marks, and even tattoos. However, these meth- ods have known drawbacks: first, transferring ownership is very difficult as re-branding is not a simple task; second, these methods damage animal skins (not healthy for animals) and render it unsuitable as a raw material for industry processes. A more modern approach than the above mentioned identifi- cations mechanism is to use numbered ear tags. It provides 1