Masahiko Hayashi

Abstract:
Automatic milking system was developed to make daily agricultural work easier by freeing personnel from daily milking and enabling family-run farms to be enlarged. This system includes a mobile robot with supersonic sensors for detecting cow teats and fitting on the milking cup automatically. Teats are cleaned and cups removed automatically when milking is finished. Automatic milking lowers the chance for personnel directly check a cow's condition, however, our system solves this problem by computerizing cow management. To guide cows through the system, a special barn layout is used. This system is currently operating at 8 sites in Japan.

Keywords: robot, milking, supersonic sensor