Lely Patent N.v.

Lely Enterprises Ag

Martinus Petrus Kortekaas

Karel Van Den Berg

Pieter Gerlof De Groot

Eduard Lodewijk Meijer

Jentje Deelstra

A milking robot system for milking of a dairy animal with teats includes milking cups, a robot arm for attaching the milking cups to the teats, a teat detector configured to detect the position of the teats, and a compressed air system for providing dry compressed air to at least part of the milking robot system. The teat detector comprises a housing containing an optical sensor. The compressed air system is operatively connectable with the inside of the housing via an air line in order to at least partly replace air which is present in the housing by an amount of dry air from the compressed air system. This replacement operation may be performed directly, under pressure, or by first extracting air by means of an additional system and then replenishing it with dry air from the compressed air system.

Milking robot system with improved teat detector

The invention provides a system and method of milking and feeding a dairy animal, wherein feed is dispensed in portions during the milking. At a predetermined moment the portion size is reduced, in order to increase the chance that the animal has actually eaten the last allocated portion at the moment when the milking has been ended, so that it will not hesitate to leave the milking parlor. This will result in a reduction of the time during which the milking parlor is unnecessarily occupied, and in an enhanced efficiency.

Method of milking a dairy animal by means of a milking system

A milking device and method for removing a teat cup from a teat of an animal are disclosed. The teat cup has a teat space for containing a teat and is connected via a milk tube to a vacuum source for generating a milking vacuum. A drawing-away device is provided for drawing the teat cup away from the animal only after a vacuum-lowering device has lowered the milking vacuum in the teat space below a threshold value. The level of vacuum may be measured by means of a vacuum sensor.

Method of milking an animal and device for this purpose

A method of performing an animal related action on an animal by means of a robot arm is disclosed. The method includes carrying out measurements on the animal by means of a sensor for locating at least one animal part, generating, on the basis of the measurements, a list of data each corresponding to a possible animal part, comparing the data on the list with historical data regarding at least one animal part, assigning to each of the data on the list, on the basis of the comparison, a probability value for actual correspondence with at least one animal part, selecting as target position that possible target position that corresponds to the data on the list having the highest probability value and moving the robot arm to the target position which corresponds to the animal part found and performing there the animal related action.

Growing community of inventors

Lisse, Netherlands

Martinus Petrus Kortekaas