DeLaval AMR
The world's first automatic milking rotary system.
The DeLaval AMR™ is designed to accelerate your transition from milking management to total farm management. It can help dairy farmers grow profitably by working smarter to drive greater efficiency, productivity and business sustainability.
At first it looks like a normal rotary; only nobody's doing the milking! Up to five robotic arms do it instead: from teat preparation, milk cup attachment to a hygienic post-milking spray.
The key criteria for measuring your farm performance is the production level gained from the herd. Capacity of the AMR™ system can vary based on a combination of factors including yield, flow rates, stages of lactation quality of the cows and how often they are presented to the system.
In practice that means that the AMR™ can milk between 500 and 700 cows per day or up to 6 million kg or more per year depending on your management strategies.
DeLaval AMR™ reduces the labour needed for milking and lets your workers focus on more stimulating tasks instead. In many ways, it fulfils the wishes of those working in the dairy industry.
Think big or start small. DeLaval AMR™ is a scalable system that suits all types of farming operations, from free stalls amd loose housing to pasture based dairying. Go for the full five arms or begin with just two robot arms and add more as your business grows.
Your future just got smarter
DeLaval AMR™ represents the next step of automation for large scale dairy farming. It provides the necessary flexibility for larger farms to milk many cows at a very cost efficient level. Beyond helping to reduce labour dependency, the DeLaval AMR™ redefine the whole farm management approach.
Cow entry
The cow enters the system through a double saloon gate that secures one cow at a time on the platform. If she hesitates to step onto the platform a gate pushes her gently a few times to teach her not to remain in between, and photocells tell the system where she is. Then a sequence gate swings her into final position on the platform at the same time as the platform rotates to the next stop position for teat preparation. The next cow can now enter the system behind her.
Teat preparation
The entrance gate has ID so the cow has stored teat positions for the teat preparation robot to use. The laser camera then finds the exact teat location and each teat is cleaned with a special teat cup adding water. The teat is then dried with a slow cup pull off from the teat. A small amount of milk is then also ejected into the wash water.
Milking cup attachment
The next move of the platform will take the cow to a milking cup attachment robot that, via a magnetic gripper, picks up 2 cups at a time from the magazine and attaches them to the teats, one at a time, using first stored teat positions and then a laser camera for exact location of the teats.
If it's a system with 24 milking points there can be 2 robots for teat preparation and also 2 robots for milking cup attachment. So, in total, the 4 robots will work on 4 cows at the same time. The process takes on average 20-30 seconds for each robot for 2 teats.
Milking
Milking starts as soon as the milking cups are on the teats. The milk is monitored per quarter with an optic milk meter measuring flow, yield, blood and conductivity. Vacuum levels per quarter are monitored by sensors in the magazine and when milk flow stops or the cup is kicked off, the cup will individually retract into the magazine. The maximum milk out time is approximately 12 minutes and if not enough for a cow with high yield (or any other reason), the platform can stop to wait or force the cup take off. This is decided by the user in the configuration set-up of the system.
The DeLaval AMRTM will suit herds exceeding 300 cows. The key criteria for measuring your farm performance is the production level gained from the herd. Capacity of the AMR system can vary based on a combination of factors including yield, flow rates, stages of lactation quality of the cows and how often they are presented to the system.