WO2015001540A1

WO2015001540A1 - Online, real-time, automated milking based measurement system

Info

Publication number: WO2015001540A1
Application number: PCT/IB2014/062885
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ranjith MUKUNDAN; Ramakrishna ADUKURI; Praveen NALE; Venkatesh SESHASAYEE; Ravishankar G SHIROOR
Original assignee: Stellapps Technologies Private Limited
Priority date: 2013-07-05
Filing date: 2014-07-05
Publication date: 2015-01-08

Abstract

The present invention provides an online, real-time, automated milking based measurement system that monitors, controls and analyzes the milking station using a mobile computing device over the Internet/Mobile Network or by using any Internet connected computing device. Proactive analytics in the system enables the timely notifications to be communicated to the farmer over the mobile device using SMS, Data channel (e.g., GPRS) and the like. Mobile and cloud enablement in the system allows for the farms or animals to be controlled, monitored and analyzed remotely. The present invention can be used to serve small herd segment of the market with attractive price points and viable business models, using the cloud environment and mobile computing device.

Description

Online, real-time, automated milking based measurement system

[001] TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[002] The present invention provides an automated milking based measurement system that can be monitored, controlled and analyzed using any computing device over a mobile network (such as a GSM or CDMA network) or over Internet, in real-time.

[003] BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[004] Automatic milking is the milking of any milk animal, especially of dairy cattle, without the need of human labour. Such systems allow complete automation of the milking process and commonly rely on the use of computers and special herd management softwares. Current automated milking systems are generally designed for large herds of animals for example, for more than 500 cows or buffaloes. Most of such systems are designed with premise based software control, monitoring and reporting wherein whole of the software and related hardware such as servers etc. are premise based. These systems are designed with the assumption that the farmers who use the system are educated and have a fair amount of computer literacy and generally don't provide support for control, monitoring and reporting remotely from any device over a mobile network (e.g., GSM or CDMA) or over Internet. The main disadvantages of such systems are that these milking systems are unsuitable for small herds of animals such as for a small herd of 15 cows or buffalos. Hence the entire segment or market goes unaddressed as a result of this disadvantage. Moreover due to high costs involved with the installation of such systems, or due to some technical reasons, if a farmer is not able to afford a local premise based server and associated software, the existing solutions cannot be deployed in such farms. In case a user (such as the farmer) is not sufficiently computer literate, he/she would have to be dependent on third parties' help to interpret the output of the software analytics and reports. Apart from these disadvantages, if the user or farm stakeholder, such as a farm owner or veterinary doctors, Artificial Insemination Technicians is not on premise (because, for example, he/she is managing or in charge of multiple farms from a remote location) due to some reason, he/she will not be able get access to the system to control, monitor and analyze various farm/animal attributes/parameters over the Internet or a mobile network.

[005] There are many patents and patent applications which address various issues like WO 2014078960 discloses a systems and methods for continuous monitoring of farm-related equipment. Multiple sensors are deployed such that the pressure resulting from each pulsator is monitored. Sensor data is transmitted from the sensors to a data collection and forwarding subsystem. The subsystem then forwards the sensor data to a server. The server analyzes the sensor data and determines if the farm-related equipment is operating within acceptable parameters. But the disclosed system does not receive data from the user or reconfigure the system based on the context.

[006] The United States patent 6742474 B2 discloses a system for automatically milking animals is provided with a milking robot and a computer which is capable of being connected to a plurality of measuring instruments for a plurality of functions of the system and physiological conditions of the animals being milked. Monitoring programs for the functions and conditions are installed in a computer which, based on comparison reference data, determines that one or more components of the system is likely to fail or otherwise malfunction and reports on abnormal physiological conditions of animals being milked by the system. The result of the comparison is transmitted to interested parties including a user and a service mechanic together with the appropriate actions to be taken.

[007] Another United States patent application 20130284098 discloses a system configured for automatically receiving, identifying and selectively milking a lactating animal in accordance with a set of milking parameters associated with said animal. This invention identifies individual animals that are at a risk of developing mastitis, and of reducing the risk of such animals' actually developing mastitis.

[008] Therefore thus exists a need for a system that overcomes all the drawbacks in the prior art and provides an automated milking system that can be used for small herd of milk animals and which can monitor, control and analyze the milking station using any device over a mobile network or Internet. And also there is a need for a context driven, dynamic re -configuration of the parameters of the measurement system

[009] SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[010] According to an embodiment, the present invention discloses a system for online, real-time, automated milking based measurement. The system includes a milking system cluster attached to a plurality of teats of an animal. The milking system cluster has a long milk tube. The milk tube ends at a milk receiver. The system has a milk meter which is coupled to the long milk tube from the milking system cluster. The milk meter has plurality of sensors for measuring plurality of attributes of at least one of the milk or milk cleaning liquid and transmits the attributes to a server on Internet over a mobile network. The system has a milk station control module to control various aspects of milking and milk cleaning based on a user input or a system preference, and also identification of cow for which the system performs proactive analysis in the proactive analytics and context awareness module. The identification may be performed either by the user or by the system. The milk station control module further controls the flow of milk or milk cleaning liquid by means of non-contact valves, wherein the valves won't come in contact with the milk. The valves are thus controlled by the milk station control module. The various parameters of the milk station control module or the other concomitant systems may be dynamically re-configured automatically or manually, in a context driven manner. The system further has a proactive analytics and context awareness module that analyses the data received from at least one of the milking system cluster, milk meter, milk station control module or the user, wherein the proactive analytics and context awareness module transmits a result of the analysis to the user as at least one of an SMS or mail or any visual or audio notifications.

[Oil] According to an embodiment, the present invention has at least one valve to control the flow of milk and milk cleaning liquid without physical contact with the milk or milk cleaning liquid.

[012] According to an embodiment, the milk station control module of the present invention interface with a gateway to control various aspects of milking and milk cleaning based on a status of other concomitant subsystems of the milking system.

[013] According to another embodiment, the concomitant subsystems of the present invention are at least one of a bulk milk cooler, diesel generator, vacuum pump. These are the components that are controlled/monitored by the milk station control module/Gateway, in an integrated fashion, along with the milk meter and other components of the concomitant system. Integrated fashion means, for example, if some parameter of the vacuum pump is not alright, the milk station control module uses this information accordingly to control the milk meter or related subsystem behavior.

[014] According to another embodiment, the milk receiver of the present invention automatically opens and closes its lid based on the user input or a system preference or as a result of the proactive analytics and context awareness module or as a function of context. A milk pump in the milk receiver automatically pumps at least one of the milk or the milk cleaning liquid based on the user input or the system preference.

[015] Mobile and cloud enablement in the system allows the farms or animals to be controlled, monitored and analyzed remotely. The present invention is used to serve small herd segment of the market with attractive price points and viable business models, given the cloud and mobile enablement part of the solution. Since the system is connected to the farm via Internet, multiple farm gateways of different small farms may share the same milk station control module and/or proactive analytics and context awareness module for monitoring, analysis and dynamic control of each system and concomitant systems of different farms. By this way, multiple small farms share the expense of the system.

[016] BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[017] FIG 1 illustrates a block diagram of the system for online, real-time, automated milking based measurement in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

[018] FIG 2 illustrates a block diagram of the automated milking based measurement system according to one embodiment of the invention.

[019] FIG 3 illustrates an exemplary environment in which systems consistent with the principles of the invention may be implemented

[020] DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[021] Reference will now be made in detail to the description of the present subject matter, one or more examples of which are shown in figures. Each example is provided to explain the subject matter and not a limitation. Various changes and modifications obvious to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains are deemed to be within the spirit, scope and contemplation of the invention.

[022] The term 'mobile computing device' includes any device having computing capabilities and a display such as a personal computer, laptop, tablet, smart phone, smart watch, smart camera, smart television etc. wherein such mobile computing device has the capability to connect to Internet or cloud environment. Also, it includes devices that can connect to cloud environment over SMS channels (and not just over data channels such as GPRS) on a mobile network (such as a GSM or CDMA network). [023] The present invention provides an automated milking based measurement system which is capable to monitor, control and analyze the milk related parameters and related milking station attributes by using any Mobile network or Internet connected mobile computing device. The present invention also has the ability to dynamically re-configure various parameters of the milking system either based on system preference or based on user input. The system preference is derived as a function of the derived context.

[024] According to an embodiment, the present invention discloses a system for online, real-time, automated milking based measurement as illustrated in FIG 1. The system (100) includes a milking system cluster (102) attached to a plurality of teats of an animal. The milking system cluster (102) has a long milk tube. The milk tube ends at a milk receiver. The system has a milk meter (104) which is coupled to the long milk tube from the milking system cluster. The milk meter (104) has a plurality of sensors for measuring plurality of attributes of at least one of the milk or milk cleaning liquid and transmits the attributes to a server on Internet over a mobile network. The system has a milk station control module (106) to control various aspects of milking and milk cleaning based on a user input or system preference. The milk station control module also performs identification of cow based for which the data is send to the proactive analytics and context awareness module for analysis. The identification of the cow is based on the local inputs or inputs received over the Internet/Mobile Network from the Computer/Server or a mobile computing device which forms either a user input or a system preference. The system preference includes any criterion which is defined in the system for the smooth functioning of the system. The system preference may include the data for identifying or classifying a black listed cow, when to start or stop the milking and milk cleaning activity. The milk cleaning includes start various activities such as cleaning the milking system, stopping the cleaning of the milking system. The user inputs are fed to the system either by the user who is in the farm premises or from remote users who sends the input through mobile computing device over the network which includes Internet and mobile network also. The milk station control module (106) further controls the flow of milk or milk cleaning liquid. To control of flow of milk or milk cleaning liquid valves are used. The valves used for controlling the flow do not come in contact with the milk. The milk station control module dynamically controls the flow of the milk or milk cleaning liquid by controlling the valves. The milk station control module is also capable to re-configure the various parameters which control the milking or milk cleaning either automatically ie system preference or based on user input.

[025] The system (100) further has a proactive analytics and context awareness module (108) analyses the data received from at least one of the milking system cluster (102), milk meter (104), milk station control module (106) or the user, wherein the proactive analytics and context awareness module (108) transmits a result of the analysis to the user as at least one of an SMS or mail or any visual or audio notifications. The proactive analytics is performed on the data received from the milk station control module to identify black listed cows, cows which yield more milk and so on. This is performed in a cloud server and is the function of the proactive analytics and context awareness module (108. The proactive analytics and context awareness module (108) further re-configure the parameters of the measurement systems dynamically based on the context Here the user includes but not limited veterinarian, a farmer or any person interested

[026] According to an embodiment, the present invention has at least one valve to control the flow of milk and milk cleaning liquid without having physical contact with the milk or milk cleaning liquid.

[027] According to an embodiment, the milk station control module (106) of the present invention interface with a gateway to control various aspects of milking and milk cleaning based on a status of other concomitant subsystems of the milking system. The gateway may be physically separate or on the same hardware. The concomitant subsystems of the present invention include but not limited to milk cooler, diesel generator, vacuum pump. These are the components that are controlled/monitored by the milk station control module (106), in an integrated fashion, along with the milk meter and other components of the concomitant system. Integrated fashion means, for example, if some parameter of the vacuum pump is not alright, the milk station control module uses this information accordingly to control the milk meter or related subsystem behavior. It is envisaged to have any other such system which works in consensus with the present system to improve or facilitate the smooth functioning of the milking system. The system is capable of dynamically controlling or reconfiguring the manner in which the milk station control module behaves in a context driven manner. The dynamic controlling or reconfiguring may be done either based on the user input or the system preference. This is achieved with the help of the proactive analytics and context awareness module (108).

[028] According to another embodiment, the milk receiver of the present invention automatically opens and closes its lid based on the user input or a system preference. A milk pump in the milk receiver automatically pumps at least one of the milk or the milk cleaning liquid based on the user input or the system preference.

[029] FIG 2 illustrates a block diagram of the system according to one embodiment of the invention. The present invention provides an automated milking based measurement system that monitors, controls and analyzes milk related parameters and other milking station attributes by using any Internet or Mobile network connected mobile computing device. The main feature of the invention is that it uses Mobile Network/Internet or cloud environment and mobile computing devices in a unique way making the entire system innovative. In addition to the above mentioned features, the system is capable to reconfigure various parameter of the measurement system dynamically based on a context. The system includes a milking system cluster (102) which attaches to the animal teats (101). The long milk tube (103) attaches the milking cluster (102) to the milk meter (104) which in turn is attached to the inlet of milk receiver (111) through a milk line (109). At the outlet of the milk receiver (111) a milk pump (112) is attached via suction pipe. The milk pump (112) discharges pipe feeds into the pipe that leads to the inlet of secondary milk storage equipment inlet such as the bulk milk cooler (113).

[030] In one embodiment, the system mainly comprises Internet enabled milk meter (104), milk station control module (106), valves (119 & 120), gateway (107), milk receiver (111) and milk pump (112). The milk meter (104) has various sensors disposed inside it to measure or sense the various attributes of the milk including but not limited to liquid conductivity, volume/yield, temperature of the liquid and so on. The attributes may include pH, fat, proteins, progesterone, milk solids-not-fat (SNF) present in the milk. The sensors interface with the milk station control module (106) over a digital or analogue interface. The milk meter (104) relays these attributes (i.e., conductivity, yield/volume, and temperature) via data transmission intermediaries such as Internet gateways (107) to the local or remotely located servers (116) over the Internet (122) or Mobile Network (122). The gateway may be a physically separate device or co-located with the milk station control module (104) hardware.

[031] The milk station control module (106) has the capability to control various aspects of milking and milk cleaning (such as start milking/cleaning etc.) and cow identification, including display list of blacklisted cows etc. based on local inputs or inputs received over the Internet/Mobile Network (122) from the server (116) or a mobile computing device (117). The server (116) preferably includes a database containing information about the herd of animals being handled by the farm and other relevant information about all the input received from various connected sub systems.

[032] The milk station controller module (106) interfaces with the gateway (107) over a digital interface which may be a physically separate device or co-located with the milk station control module (104) hardware. The plurality of valves (119, 120) control the flow of milk and milk cleaning liquid without actually coming in contact with the milk based on local inputs or inputs received over the Internet/Mobile Network (122) from the server (116) or a mobile computing device (117). The milk station controller (106) also interfaces with the valves (119& 120) while the gateway (107) interfaces with the milk pump (112) and milk receiver digital lock interface etc. The gateway (107) controls various aspects of milking and milk cleaning based on the status of other concomitant subsystems such as the bulk milk cooler (113), diesel generator, vacuum pump/lines (114) etc. in conjunction with local inputs or inputs received over the Internet/Mobile Network (122) from the server (116) or a mobile computing device (117). The gateway (107) interfaces with the Internet over data channel (e.g., GPRS) or with the Mobile Network (e.g., GSM, CDMA) over SMS channel. The gateway (107) also interfaces with the valves (110) and other concomitant subsystems such as the bulk milk cooler (113) inlet and outlet valves. The gateway may be physically separate device or co-located with the milk station controller module hardware.

[033] The milk station controller (106) interfaces with the gateway (107) over a digital interface. The milk station controller (106) interfaces with the valves (119& 120), while the gateway (107) the milk pump (112) and milk receiver digital lock interface. The automated milking system helps mechanized milking of cows and buffaloes and other such animals such as goats and resulting milk automatically flows out via a milk line, as the cow is getting milked, in to a storage apparatus such as a milk receiver (111) or a bulk milk cooler (113) or a simple milk bucket. The milk receiver (111) receives the milk from the milk line (109) as the animal is getting milked. The milk receiver (111) has the capability to open, close its lid based on local inputs or inputs received over the Internet/Mobile Network from the computer/server or a mobile computing device. The milk pump (112) also automatically pumps the incoming milk/cleaning liquid to secondary storage equipment such as a bulk milk cooler (113) automatically or based on local inputs or the inputs received from the server (116) or a mobile computing device (117) over the Internet/Mobile Network (122). [034] Figure 3 illustrates an exemplary environment in which systems consistent with the principles of the invention may be implemented. The environment may have networkl and network2 wherein the networkl (14) consists of several clients (11, 12, 13) where the system for online, real-time, automated milking based measurement is implemented. The client may be a milk meter or a gateway or plurality of such gateways or milk meters or any other device used for the milking and milk cleaning activity. Here the various clients (11, 12, 13) are connected over network 1. Wherein network 1 may be a Serial Interface such as RS232, RS485 or RF interface such as ISM RF, ZigBee, Wifi etc.

[035] The network2 (18) has clients (19, 20, 22) which include personal computer, laptop, mobile device, tablet, or any other types of device that support two way interactions with the user either using a graphical user interface or through other interface mechanisms such as voice or gesture or videos through which user gives input to the system or user receives information from the system. These clients (19, 20, 21) interact with server (15) and transmit the data required for system for online, real-time, automated milking based measurement over a networkl (14) and netework2 (18). The Network2 (18) may include for example a telephone network, such as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), an intranet, the Internet, mobile network or a combination of networks.

[036] The server (15) uses various databases for receiving and transmitting information required for automated milking system. In some embodiments, the server (15) may also connect to another server (16). In practice, there may be more number of servers and clients. In some situations, a server may perform the functions of all the two servers (15, 16) illustrated in the Figure 3. It may be also contemplated that server may be one or many. In the present invention, the milk station control module (106) may be a client where as the proactive analytics and context awareness module alone in the cloud server. [037] In some cases all or part of the server configurations may be running on the client (11). In some cases, the client (11) may connect to multiple servers. In certain scenario, the client (11) may perform the functions of server or server may perform client functions. The proactive analytics and context awareness module resides in the server.

[038] Clients such as Gateways, milk station control module may communicate with the rest of the components in the system via Network 1 normally but it's not restricted from interacting via Network 2 (in exceptional scenarios where the Milk Meters support a network interface for communicating with the Network 2 directly).

[039] The above mentioned functions may be part of one server or several servers and each server may implement the functionalities of others. It may be possible that any of the server may be implemented using a cluster of servers involving two or more separate devices with all the other associated devices like load balancer, firewall , routers etc.

[040] The invented automatic milking based measurement system is indigenized for small herds of animals, for example 15 cows or buffalos herd size which caters to an entirely new segment or market. The milking system is capable of controlling, monitoring and analyzing the various parameters or attributes of the farm or animals over the Internet/Mobile Network and mobile computing devices. Proactive analytics and context awareness module of the system enables the timely notifications (e.g., action to be taken) to be communicated to the farmer or farm owner over the mobile device (e.g., SMS) - e.g., "Please treat this cow today for teat infection, else you will lose Rs. 1000/-". The system is further capable of for dynamic reconfiguration of the parameters of the measurement system. For example, if more cows than average were positive for mastitis (based on conductivity change), then the system dynamically re-configure the measurement system which includes the milk meter and the milking system cluster to decrease the threshold level of conductivity parameter reporting in the measurement system - i.e., increase the sensitivity (least-count) of conductivity parameter detection for other cows. In another scenario if the ambient temperature of the farm is known to be above average then dynamically re-configure the measurement system to increase the threshold level of temperature parameter reporting. The reconfiguration is done either through user input (manual intervention) or through system preference (automatic) over the mobile/cellular network or Internet

[041] The present invention uses the non-contact valve which brings down the cost of the overall milk meter solution by an order of magnitude. The contact based valve needs to satisfy supreme quality, it need to be dairy grade and the manufacturing has to meet the dairy grade standards which increases its cost substantially. The usage of the non-contact based valve for the milk meter reduces the overall cost substantially.

[042] Mobile and cloud enablement in the system allows for the farms or animals to be controlled, monitored and analyzed remotely. The present invention serves for small herd segment of the market with attractive price points and viable business models, given the cloud and mobile enablement part of the solution. Since the system is connected to the farm via Internet, multiple farm gateways of different small farms may share the same milk station control module for monitoring, analysis and dynamic control of each system and concomitant systems of different farms. By this way, multiple small farms can share the expense of the system.

Claims

[043] Claims: - [044] We claim:

1. A system for online, real-time, automated milking based measurement, the system comprises of:

a. a milking system cluster attached to a plurality of teats of an animal, wherein the milking system cluster has a milk tube, wherein the milk tube ends at a milk receiver; b. a milk meter is coupled to the milk tube from the milking system cluster, wherein the milk meter has plurality of sensors for measuring plurality of attributes of at least one of the milk or milk cleaning liquid and to transmit the attributes;

c. a milk station control module to control various aspects of milking and milk cleaning based on a user input or a system preference, and identification of cow, wherein the milk station control module further controls the flow of milk or milk cleaning liquid by means of non-contact valves, wherein the user input is received through at least one of a user interface on a farm premise or a mobile computing device through at least one of the Internet or mobile network;

d. a proactive analytics and context awareness module analyses the data received from at least one of the milking system cluster, milk meter, milk station control module or the user, wherein the proactive analytics and context awareness module: i. transmits a result of the analysis to the user as at least one of an SMS or mail or any visual or audio notifications,

ii. dynamically reconfigure the parameters of the system for measurement based on at least one of the user input or system preference with the help of milk station controlling module.

2. The system as claimed in claiml, wherein the milk meter transmits the attributes to at least one of the milk station control module or the proactive analytics and context awareness module.

3. The system as claimed in claiml, wherein the proactive analytics and context awareness module gets the identification of cow for which data for analysis is received from the milk station control module.

4. The system as claimed in claim 1 further has at least one valve to control the flow of milk and milk cleaning liquid, wherein the valve does not have physical contact with the milk or milk cleaning liquid.

5. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the milk station control module further interface with a gateway to control various aspects of milking and milk cleaning based on a status of other concomitant subsystems of the milking system.

6. The system as claimed in claim 5, wherein the concomitant subsystems is at least one of a bulk milk cooler, diesel generator, vacuum pump.

7. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the milk receiver automatically opens and closes its lid based on the user input or a system preference.

8. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the system further has a milk pump at an outlet of the milk receiver, wherein the milk pump automatically pumps at least one of the milk or the milk cleaning liquid based on the user input or the system preference.