Subject:
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TR: North America's First/Only DeLaval VMS
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto
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Date:
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Thu, 9 Dec 2004 10:29:15 GMT
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Viewed:
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475 times
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My father worked for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, and with that I
was introduced to virtually every aspect of farming as a child growing up.
My dad would often take me to farms, and early on I became fascinated with
the technology in use at the farms. Just over 5 years ago, my dad picked me
up from school and said he had a surprise. He drove me about 10 minutes from
our home in Innerkip, and took me to see North America's first automatic
milking robot.
Buily by LELY, the Astronaut was the world's first commercially available
robotic milking system. Cows are free to move about the entire complex,
being milked whenever they feel like it. Entering a small pen, a robot would
first clean the teats, then attach the milking equipment without human
intervention.
I was Ventax's first co-op student back in 1999, and now we have a new co-op
student, Nathan. We started talking right away, because I could tell he had
an interest in snowboarding from his lift tags on his jacket. When he
casually mentioned that the farm he lived on had a "robot", I asked more
questions, and found out that his farm had a DeLaval Voluntary Milking
System (VMS). I did not know what this was. I had thought that LELY was the
only company that built anything like this.
At lunch, I checked it out, and to my surprise DeLaval was indeed offering a
robotic milking system, but dramatically different to LELY's technique. I
was instantly intrigued and practically begged him to show it to me some
day. I talked it over wiht my dad a bit, and he remembered the farm from his
days working for OMAF, and we talked a little bit more about the system. He
also mentioned that it was not only the first, but only DeLaval VMS in North
America.
Nathan wasn't aware that his robot was so unique, but was nevertheless very
eager to show it off. It was a total flashback to when I went to see the
LELY machine so many years ago, and I was even more excited this time around
than I was then.
The barn is set up in two halves of about 60 cows each. Each side has a
dedicated robot. The layout of the barn is such that the control room is
situated directly in the centre of the two robots, so from here all can be
seen. I was surprised when Nathan said we could go inside the "room" that
the robot was in - in our industry at Ventax, this would all be interlocked
and would instantly shut down the system if I'd opened the door. I then
remembered that the entire robot is servopneumatic and is thus "springy", so
it's not really a safety hazard at all to be inside the room with the robot.
On several ocassions I kept forgetting it was moving about, and it konked me
in the head.
The first step is to identify the cow which has entered the pen (on her own
free will) via a readable tag. Once the computer has identified her, the
physical dimensions of the pen automatically adjust to best accomidate her
and ensure she won't move around too much. Appropriate feed types and
amounts are dispenced, so she can eat a bit while the robot goes to work.
The next step is to clean the teats, which is done via a special head. The
robot carefully (and very quickly) removes it from a nest, and locates each
teat cup via a laser guidance system. Once the teat is identified and
located, it briskly attaches the cleaning head to each teat, and washes and
dries it. Then, the robot puts the cleaning head away and moves on to attach
each of the four individual teat cups.
Once each of the 4 teat cups are attached, the robot twists over and gently
moves in to stabalize the hoses, just like a human would support them to
keep them from touching the floor. The way the robot moves and acts is so
human like. It's so different from what we do at work.
When each quarter's flow drops below a threshold, the cups are automatically
retracted into the cleaning nests, and once all 4 have come off the robot
sprays the underside of the cow with a cleaning solution. The front door
opens and the cow is encouraged to leave, so the next one cam come in.
I think we stood watching it for over 2 hours. Huge thanks to Nathan and his
dad for taking time out of their busy schedules to show me this incredible
machine!
Photos at: http://img74.photobucket.com/albums/v224/duckjock/DeLaval-VMS/
Iain
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: TR: North America's First/Only DeLaval VMS
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| In lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto, Iain Hendry wrote: Hi Iain, snipped intro. (...) After reading this, and being fairly familiar with the automated milking process, a few questions of this robotic process popped into my head..... and I was wondering if (...) (20 years ago, 9-Dec-04, to lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto)
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