Automatic Cow Health Measurement System in a Milking Robot

Abstract

Milking robot offers a unique possibility for dynamic measurements of physiological data.We have worked on automatically measuring health of dairy cows during automatic milking. Themeasurement system consists of leg health measurement system and a respiration ratemeasurement. Four strain gauge scales were installed into a milking robot in order to measure theweight of each leg separately and a laser distance sensor was placed next to the robot in order tomeasure the radial movement of cows body surface. The sensors were connected to an amplifierand the data was collected into a PC using a dedicated computer program. Three video cameraswere installed to observe the system and the data was recorded digitally.<br><br>From the data the dynamic weight or load of each leg and the respiration rate of the cow can bemeasured. The average weight, the weight variation of each leg, the total weight, the number of kicksand steps, the frequency of kicks and the total time in the milking robot can be calculated. The datacan be used for automatic detection of leg problems and it is highly probable that the symptoms ofheat stress can be detected as increased respiration rate.