AUTOMATIC MILKING ARRANGEMENT

摘要

An automatic milking arrangement and method in which milking equipment is taken to a milking location (M), where an animal to be milked is located, by a freely-movable self-driven device (1) with a remote controlled guidance system for moving and steering the device automatically. The milking equipment includes a milk receiver (15) having a maximum capacity exceeding the milk yield of one animal, and a route planning system is provided for determining a further milking location to which the milking equipment is to be taken, after the milk yielded by the animal at the first milking location has been collected in the milk receiver, for the milk yielded by another animal at the further location to be collected in the milk receiver before the milking equipment is taken to a discharge station (53) where the collected milk is emptied automatically from the receiver. The route planning system can take into account the expected milk yields of the animals, the health condition of each animal, and/or the total distance to be travelled by the milking equipment before reaching the discharge station. The milking equipment may be integrated with the self-driven device (1) or be incorporated in a milking unit (71) that is demountable from the self-driven device at the milking location.