Justification of Technological Schemes and Parameters of Robotic Milking Parlors

Abstract

The creation of compact robotic milking manipulators involves their use not only in single-box robotic milking stations (monobox), but also in milking parlors such as “Parallel” or “Carousel” with a capacity of up to simultaneously milking 120 heads.(Research purpose) To substantiate milking parlors technological schemes and options for their use on livestock farms of various capacities.(Materials and methods) The authors studied the organizing experience of machine and robot milking system for cattle in the Russian Federation and foreign countries, leading in milk production. They analyzed the assortment of machines for dairy farming. Based on the results of simulation in the Any Logic software, they proposed the concepts of robotic milking systems. They compared the throughput when performing milking service operations with robotic types of milking machines and standard systems operated by the manipulator.(Results and discussion) The authors performed calculations and gave a comparative assessment of the duration of the service cycles for animals in automated and robotic milking parlors of various configurations: “Fan”, “Herring-bone”, “Parallel”. To reduce the capital intensity of robotic facilities, to increase the level of production process execution accuracy, to reduce the time required to service animals, a robotic animal sanitation system was proposed at the entrance to the milking parlor. The authors proved that the introduction of the proposed configuration of robotic milking parlors would reduce the capital intensity of equipment in comparison with single-box models of robotic milking stations. They noted the advantages of such systems: the general infrastructure of the component base (milk pipelines, milk receivers, automatic rinsing, etc.) and was not separated by different streams.(Conclusions) The authors revealed the optimal ratio of the number of milking posts and medical stations – 13:1. It was proved that it provided maximum labor productivity for a robotic milking parlor. According to the results of theoretical calculations, it was determined that the proposed robotics schemes for milking parlors exceed the productivity of existing single-box robotic milking stations.