Apparatus for and a method of performing an animal-related action regarding at least a part of the body of an animal
AssigneeAlfa Laval Agri AB
InventorLeif Lindholm
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus for and a method of performing an animal-related action regarding at least a part of the body of an animal is proposed. The apparatus includes a cleaning tool (15), adapted to be brought into contact with the part of the body, a support (16, 17) provided to support the cleaning tool (15), and a drive element (18, 24) provided to move the cleaning tool (15) along the contour of the part of the body. A sensor (34) is provided to sense the contact of the cleaning tool (15) and the animal. Furthermore, a processor (36) is provided to determine the position of the part in response to the sensor.
Claims21
An apparatus for performing an animal-related action regarding at least a part of the body of an animal, comprising
- a cleaning tool adapted to be brought into contact with the part;
- a support means provided to support the cleaning tool;
- a drive means provided to move the cleaning tool along a contour of the part;
- a sensor provided to sense the contact of the cleaning tool with the animal;
- processing means operatively coupled to said sensor and provided to determine the position of the part in response to said sensor;
- and
- equipment for performing the animal-related action operatively coupled to said processing means to receive data corresponding to said determined position for use by said equipment in performing the animal-related action.
A method of performing an animal-related action regarding at least a part of a body of an animal, the part having a contour, comprising the steps of:
- bringing a cleaning tool into contact with said part;
- moving the cleaning tool along the contour of the said part;
- sensing the contact of the cleaning tool and said part during said movement along the contour, and by determining the position of said part in response to said sensed contact;
- and
- transferring data corresponding to the determined position of the part to equipment for performing the animal related action on the part and then performing the animal-related action.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.