WO2002007505A1

WO2002007505A1 - A method and an apparatus for milking animals

Info

Publication number: WO2002007505A1
Application number: PCT/SE2001/001549
Authority: WO
Inventors: Martin SJÖLUND
Original assignee: DeLaval Holding AB
Current assignee: DeLaval Holding AB
Priority date: 2000-07-26
Filing date: 2001-07-04
Publication date: 2002-01-31
Anticipated expiration: 2003-01-26
Also published as: AU2001268002A1; SE0002772L; SE0002772D0; SE516961C2

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for automatically milking a milking animal and to an automatic milking machine comprising identification means for identifying the animal to be milked, locating means for location of a selected teat, teat related means and a robot arm arranged for gripping and applying the teat related means to said selected teat. The time related information associated with the application and operation of the teat related means are stored in a data base in association with the identity of the milking animal. The selected teat and the time related information from a previous milking is used for determining in which order the teats are selected.

Description

A METHOD AND AN APPARATUS FOR MILKING ANIMALS

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for automatically milking an animal and to an automatic milking system comprising said method and/or apparatus.

RELATED ART AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The milking of animals has been highly automated in recent years. Automatic milking machines, electronic animal identification systems and computer operated feeding stations are gaining wide acceptance to improve productivity and efficiency.

In automatic milking machines, a cluster of teat cups is applied to a animal's udder, a pulsating pneumatic or vacuum source is applied to the teat cups to effect milking, and the resulting milk is drawn by a vacuum from the cluster to a milk collecting tank.

Placing the teat cups to a animal's udder has remained essentially unchanged. EP 0 728 412 describes a milking method where the milking of the rear udder quarters are started before the milking of the fore udder quarters since the rear udder quarters can supply more milk than the fore ones .

A drawback with said method is that in order to be efficient enough said rear udder quarters must contain more milk than the fore udder quarters which may not always be the case.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and an apparatus for automatically milking a milking animal which overcomes or at least reduces the above-mentioned problem. According to the present invention this object is obtained by providing a method as claimed in claim 1, by an apparatus according to claim 4 and also by an automatic milking system according to claim 7.

An advantage with the present invention is that the order of cleaning the teats, attaching the teat cups and milking the udder quarters is dependent on which animal is going to be milked which will render the milking procedure more effective.

Another advantage of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is that the order of cleaning the teats, attaching the teat cups and milking the udder quarters is dependent not only on which animal is to be milked, but also at which point of time said milking is going to take place which will render the milking procedure even more efficient .-

Yet another advantage of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is that the milking procedure can easily be adapted so that all udder quarters can be emptied at the same time in the most time efficient way to minimise handling time and maximise efficiency.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Fig. 1 shows a schematic teat versus time diagram when milking a milking animal according to a prior art technique.

Fig. 2 shows a schematic teat versus time diagram when milking a milking animal according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3 shows a schematic teat versus time diagram when milking a milking animal according to a second embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 4 shows a plan view of an animal and its teats in a milking booth.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Fig. 1 shows a teat versus time diagram according to a prior art technique, which will be described hereinafter for the sake of clarification of the present invention only. In this diagram a vertical axis represents the different teats with its corresponding udder quarters which are marked with different reference numerals 10, 12, 14, 16 representing the specific order of the teats in Fig. 4. A left fore udder quarters is indicated with reference numeral 10, a right fore udder quarters is indicated with reference numeral 12, a right rear udder quarters is represented with reference numeral 14 and a left rear udder quarters is represented with reference numeral 16. These reference numerals and order of the teats will be kept throughout this specification.

When a specific animal is to be milked, it is first identified in a manner well known to a man skilled in the art and, therefore, needs no attention here. After the animal has been identified, a cleaning procedure of its teats is started. The order in which the cleaning of the teats is taking place is specific to each animal and also dependent on at what point of time the milking event is taking place.

The first time an animal is milked, i.e., an animal that has never been milked before, the rear udder quarters are milked before the fore udder quarters, since this is probably the most efficient way of milking the animal . When a specific animal has been milked several times over a specific period of time, previous milking events can be used to render a present milking event more efficient. The previous milking events are stored in a data base, and, typically, the milking time for each udder quarter at a given point of time, at a given time interval, is stored in said data base. It may well be so that any of the teats 10, 12, 14, 16 should be milked before any of the others .

Returning now to Fig. 1, the cleaning procedure of each teat 10, 12, 14, 16 is represented with a certain time C on the horizontal time axis. When cleaning the teats, a robot arm 206 (Fig. 4) collects a cleaning cup 207 with which one teat after the other is cleaned. The order in which the teats in this specific example are cleaned is 10, 12, 14, 16, where each said number represents a specific teat as described above. Application of teat cups starts when cleaning is finished. In Fig. 1 a travel time Tr represents a time for the robot arm 206 to put back the cleaning cup and pick up a teat cup. As soon as the first teat cup is connected to the first teat 10 the milking of that teat commences . Thereafter the robot arm 206 collects the second teat cup and connects it to the second teat 12, then collects the third teat cup and connects it to the third teat 14 and then collects the fourth teat cup and connects it to the fourth teat 16. The milking of teats 12, 14 and 16 commences as soon as the teat cups are connected to the corresponding teat. In Fig. 1, the application of the teat cups, the milking procedure of the teat 10, 12, 14, 16 and travel time of the robot arm 206 is represented with a certain time A on the horizontal time axis. As can be seen, the time A for teat 14 is considerably more time consuming compared to the time A for the other teats. The time it takes to milk said teat 14 will affect to total milking time Tl of said animal .

Fig. 2 shows a schematic teat versus time diagram according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment according to the present invention, the cleaning procedure is performed as described in connection with Fig. 1. Instead of, as in prior art and as described in connection with Fig. 1, connecting the teat cups in the same order as they were cleaned, the first teat cup is connected to the teat with the longest expected milking time. The teat with the longest expected milking time in Fig. 2 is teat 14. The order in which the following teat cups are attached depends on their influence on the total milking time T2. If the expected milking times of the other three teats are equal, the order does not affect the total milking time of the animal and the connection of the teat cup may be done in any order. However, if the expected milking times of the different teats are unequal, the order to connect them in order to save time should be in decreasing milking time, i.e. starting to connect the teat cup to the teat with the longest expected milking time, thereafter connecting the teat cup to the teat with the second longest expected milking time, thereafter the third longest and fourth longest expected milking time.

Fig. 3 shows a schematic teat versus time diagram according to a second embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment both the cleaning procedure and the milking procedure are changed as compared to the prior art as described in connection with Fig. 1.

Instead of, as in prior art and as described in connection with Fig. 1, cleaning all teats before connecting the first teat cup, only one teat 14 is cleaned as represented in Fig. 3 with a time C. Immediately after this cleaning procedure of teat 14 is finished, the robot arm 206 puts back the cleaning cup 207 and picks up a teat cup 208 representing a time Tr in Fig. 3. As soon as the teat cup is connected to teat 14 the milking procedure starts. The application of the teat cup, the milking procedure of the teat 10, 12, 14, 16 and the travel time of the robot arm 206 are represented by a certain time A on the horizontal time axis in Fig. 3. After connection of the teat cup 208 on the teat 14 the cleaning procedure starts again with the remaining teats 10, 12 and 16. After the cleaning procedure of the last teat 16 is finished, the robot arm 206 puts back the cleaning cup 207 and starts picking up the remaining teat cups 208 and connects them to the teats. When the cleaning procedure of last teat is finished, the robot arm 206 puts back the cleaning cup 207 and picks up a teat cup 208 representing another time Tr in figure 3. The total milking time T3 according to this second embodiment of the present invention is shorter compared to the total milking time T2 in the first embodiment of the present invention. Alternatively, instead of cleaning only one teat and immediately thereafter start connecting the teat cup on said teat, two or three teats may be cleaned and having their teat cups attached before the remaining teats are cleaned. As described in connection with Fig. 2, the order in which the remaining teat cups shall be connected depends on the expected total milking time associated with each of them.

The order in which the teats 10, 12, 14, 16 are cleaned and milked in order to achieve the most efficient milking at a first milking event, for example in the morning, according to either the first or the second embodiment of the present invention, may well be changed at a later milking event the same day. The sequence of cleaning and milking the teats does not only change over a day, but may also change over a longer time perspective, for example lactation period, summer and winter, etc. The expected milking time for the specific animal and the specific teat is therefore strongly dependent on when milking takes place. The calculation of the expected milking time takes account of these differences. When the automatic milking machine is deciding in what order to clean and milk the teats, not only the point of time of the day may be important, but also the point of time in the lactation period, and if it is summer or winter. All such data may be taken into account when deciding the order of cleaning the teats and milking the milking animal. Previous milking events are stored in a data base for calculation of the expected milking time of each teat of an animal to be milked.

Instead of minimising the total milking time Tl, T2 or T3 , the data stored in the data base could be used to empty all udder quarters at the same time.

Fig. 4 shows a plan view of an animal and its teats in a milking booth 201 comprising a robot arm, cleaning cup 207 and teat cups 208. In this plan view each teat of the animal is given a specific reference numeral 10, 12, 14, 16 for the sake of clarification of the present invention only.

If, at a previous milking event, one or several of the teats were not milked, this fact can be taken into account when deciding and calculating the expected milking time for the different teats. It may well be that said teat or teats should be cleaned and milked first at a later milking event.

Claims

1. A method of automatically milking a milking animal, comprising the steps of :

identifying the milking animal to be milked,

- locating at least one selected teat belonging to an udder quarter of the animal,

cleaning the at least one selected teat of the milking animal ,

attaching a teat cup to the at least one selected teat, and

- milking the animal,

c h a r a c t e r i s e d i n that it further comprises the steps of

having stored in a data base associated with the identity of said milking animal time related information associated with the application and operation of said teat cup, said teat and said time related information at at least one previous milking event; and

determining in which order said teat cups are going to be attached taking into account said stored time related information.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of

- using said time related information from at least one previous milking event for determining in which order said teats are going to be cleaned.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2 , further comprising the step of

- using the fact that one or a plurality of teats were not milked at a previous milking event in determining in which order said teat cups are going to be atached and/or said teats are going to be cleaned.

4. The method according to any one of the claims 1 - 3 , wherein at least one teat cup is attached to the selected teat before cleaning at least another teat of the same animal .

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein said time related information from at least one previous milking event is a previous session at the same time of a day, a year or a lactation period as the present milking event.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising the step of arranging the teat cups and/or milking all udder quarters so that the total cleaning and milking time is minimised.

7. The method according to claim 5, further comprising the step of arranging the teat cups and/or milking all udder quarters so that they are emptied at the same time.

8. An automatic milking machine comprising identification means for identifying an animal to be milked, locating means for location of a selected teat, teat related means and a robot arm arranged for gripping and applying said teat related means to said selected teat, for implementing the method according to any one of the preceding claims.