Automatic milking systems
Automatic milking systems (AMS) are widely used in the dairy industry. The main components of an AMS are the milking machine, the gate system to control cow traffic, the robot arm and the teat tracking sensor.
Until recently, laser scanners or triangulation sensors have been used as teat trackers. However, with the arrival of time-of-flight cameras, it is now possible to significantly improve the performance of the teat tracker. The most advanced AMS now use time-of-flight cameras from MESA.
The main advantage of time-of-flight cameras is that they have the ability to capture an array of depth data at once, while laser sensors only capture one (or few) line(s) of depth data. This advantage translates into a much more robust detection of the cow teats, with a significantly decreased rate of missed attachments, shorter attachment times, and an increased milking capacity of the system.
MESA has developed application specific TOF cameras for teat tracking based on the SR4000 product line. The core is the 176x144 pixel TOF imager with an optical feedback line. The ruggedized housing is engineered to operate over a wide temperature range in the harsh environment of a cow barn. It withstands vibration, mechanical shock, as well as exposure to water, dirt, and a variety of corrosive chemicals. The teat detection and localization algorithm runs embedded in the camera on a Linux platform, which considerably reduces the processing load for the robot controller.
TOF cameras by MESA have become standard for teat tracking in the latest generation of AMS.