Milker

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Motivation for an autonomous milking ongoing robot (AMOR)

An autonomous system results in the following dis-/advantages:

  • + Indepence (no more need to be there to milk morning and evening, 7days/week)
  • - Machine service increases
  • + Technical knowledge increases, hence perhaps some other good robot ideas may evolve.
  • + Cows/Goats/Sheep can decide themselves when to get milked.
  • + Concentrated feed can be delivered automatically and according to milk delivered.
  • - Animals' possible illness not realized early enough. => Action taken too late. => Animal could die.
  • - Gathering at Milking robot leaves behind a lot of unusable muddy terrain at entrance (doors in general).
  • - Higher complexity in separation of milk for calves, though of course possible.
  • + Driving out and in of cattle no longer necessary as animals can get milked outside.
  • + Less material required (much shorter vacuum and milk tubes as compared to conventional non-automated distributed [at cow/goat..] milking)
  • ... and several others.


An ongoing system results in the following (dis-)advantages:

  • - Higher complexity.
  • + Independance of any external supplies.
   ** Water (heavily dependent on environment)
   ** Power (Solar/Heat/Water/MFC replaces Grid)
   ** Food (difficult, nevertheless this is planned for later revisions of AMOR)
  • - Redundancy of susceptible subsystems (Electronics, in general: The more complex the system the higher the vulnerability).
  • + Less cabling, water pipe laying and bundled maintenance (as you can wait for enough minor errors to accumulate before taking the system apart).
  • ... and several others.

High Level Overview

AMOR High Level Schematic PDF PDF Version: REV2, Improved & interconnected. AMOR High Level Schematic (REV2)


Separation in Subproblems & Technological Difficulties

Our AMOR consists of several submodules:

  • MECHANICAL CONSTRUCTION
    • - Difficult to be robust, lightweight (for truck to lift) & cheap the same time.
    • + Rain serves as a water supply and natural (ecologic) washing.
  • VACUUM SYSTEM
    • - Difficult to be flexible in frequency (provide user settings) and keep it simple at the same time.
    • + Could be used for several other functionality than milking (doors, ...). => No hydraulics needed.
    • Note: As the robotic manipulator should be flexible anyway, compressible air/vacuum could serve this purpose, too - stays the problem of vulnerability to leakage.
    • Vacuum pumps.
  • STORAGE CONSTRUCTION
    • Milk
    • Food
    • Water
    • Energy
    • Database for animals milk (amount, properties, ...)
    • Database for organization of the cow's fertile cycle, ...
  • SENSORICS
    • Milk properties (flow rate, derivations of that, TODO)
    • Robotic manipulator (3D camera, washing mechanism)
    • Animal within milking construction => Door states.
  • ELECTRONICS
    • Control of Doors.
    • Control of Feeding (derived from amount of milk), but also accept some user constraints (lower / upper bounds for each type of food respectively).
    • Control of Robotic manipulator (joints, gripper).
    • Collection & storage of the stored animal & product data.
  • SOFTWARE
    • Microcontroller programs capable of controlling at least two AMOR system blocks (stacked next to each other).
    • compare ELECTRONICS.


Revisions & Power system

Power system 100 kW inverter is planned for late August or early September, the AMOR power system & basic prototype for Autumn. [1]

Discussion

Feel free to post critiques or technical stuff here - alternatively use the forum, even though currently I think it's easier to discuss here directly - or under tab "talk". --Jan

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Forum

Open Source Ecology Germany - Forum: Thread AMOR