Realization of milking robot with tracking object function using fully electrical driving unit

In order to design the optimal well-being cow system, it had researched the fully electrical driving system for automatic milking robot, which can reduce the stress of cows such as actuator noise sound and mechanical vibration. The milking robot can detect exactly the nipples position in the moving condition of a cow. Also, the robot manipulator must control tracking the teat cup to the detected nipple position. The proposed milking robot is designed by the fully electrical driving system. It had designed and realized the automatic milking system that is the nipples of the cow are detected by the laser scanning unit and the manipulator has the tracking control to 3 axes driving unit. It includes high technology such as 3 axes manipulator, detecting nipple unit, vacuum generating unit, milking storage unit, manipulator protection bar, AC servo motor with feedback sensors, inverters and 3 axes position tracking boards using PIC18F8720 microprocessor and interface communication using TCP/IP. The presented nipple detection method and the electrical driving manipulator have the advantages of a simple, low cost and very quiet. The designed manipulator is realized by the fully electrical motor and servo position control algorithm with tracking PID compensation. The presented robot is realized by using the nipple detection unit, 4 teat cups, 3 axes robot arm, 6 servo motors and automatic milking control line. The designed robot is tested in the cow farm, which is satisfied with the design specification for milking robot manipulator.