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US 5,816,192 AGranted
Feed wagon
AssigneeMaasland N.V.
InventorsCornelis van der Lely, Karel van der Berg
Life of this patent
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AssigneeMaasland N.V.
InventorsCornelis van der Lely, Karel van der Berg
Estimating the term…
A feed wagon for feeding silage or concentrate, or both, to animals, such as cows, which comprises automatically operated loading and unloading mechanisms. The wagon selectively automatically loads silage at ground level at two slot silos and silage or concentrate at a standing silo. It discharges in a feed alley between stalls in a cowshed. The route between the slot silos, the standing silo, and the feed alley is marked by active or passive beacons. The wagon carries detectors for detecting the beacons and a computer which cooperates with the detectors and steering mechanisms for the wagon to move the wagon between the slot silos, the standing silo and the feed alley travelling on the route marked by the beacons. The method comprises automatically loading relatively small quantities of silage on the feed wagon, moving that silage to the feed alley by guidance from its onboard computer and detection of the passive beacons between the silos and the cowshed, automatically discharging the silage in the feed alley to be received by stalls, moving the feed wagon after discharging silage to a selected silo by guiding the onboard computer and detection of the beacons along the route and repeating these steps on a substantially continuous basis.
A feed wagon for feeding silage, fodder and/or concentrate to animals, such as cows, which is capable of being automatically moved between a feed loading station and a feed unloading station, passive beacons being disposed between said feed loading station and said feed unloading station the wagon comprising an automatic navigation system cooperating with said passive beacons to control its movement between said feed loading station and said feed unloading station.
A feed wagon in accordance with claim 5, wherein said automatic navigation system comprises an onboard computer.
A system for automatically supplying feed from a silo to stalls in a cow shed which comprises a feed wagon including silage loading means and silage discharge means, a route to be travelled by said feed wagon between said silo and said stalls, an onboard computer and detection means carried by said feed wagon, a plurality of passive beacons disposed along said route, said detection means detecting said passive beacons and guiding said feed wagon via said onboard computer whereby said feed wagon automatically loads silage at said silo, carries said silage to said stalls in said cow shed by travelling said route from said silo to said cow shed while being guided by said passive beacons and discharging said silage from said feed wagon by said silage discharge means into said stalls, the movement of said feed wagon being controlled by said onboard computer while travelling said route between said silo and said cow shed.
A method of delivering silage from a silo to stalls in a cow shed which comprises the steps of (a) automatically loading a relatively small quantity of silage onto a feed wagon at said silo, (b) moving said relatively small quantity of silage in said feed wagon from said silo to said cow shed by guiding said movement of said feed wagon by an onboard computer and a detector associated therewith that detects passive beacons between said silo and said cow shed, (c) automatically discharging said relatively small quantity of silage from said feed wagon into said stalls in said cow shed, (d) moving said feed wagon after relatively small quantity of silage has been discharged therefrom from said cow shed back to said silo by guiding said movement of said feed wagon by said onboard computer and said detector associated therewith detecting said passive beacons between said cow shed and said silo, and (e) repeating steps (a) through (d) on a substantially continuous basis.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.