Int’l - Lely awarded with SPACE exhibition innovation award 2006
Published:October 9, 2006
Source :Lely Group
International and local visitors made their way to the 20th SPACE Exhibition 2006 in Rennes, France, which took place from September 12 through 15, 2006. The SPACE exhibition is touted as an ''essential rendezvous for all professionals'' in the livestock industry, and it is renowned for its good mix of exhibitors and as the world’s premier breeding event.
An outstanding feature of SPACE is the Innov'SPACE award, which highlights innovations by exhibiting companies and institutes that are perfectly geared to the needs of farmers. More than 140 entries were registered for the Innov'SPACE award this year. Lely was selected from this large number, and is proud to have been awarded the Innov'SPACE award 2006 for its Astronaut A3 milking robot and the robot s unique 4Effect pulsator function.
At a special presentation, Guillaume Chabra, Product Manager Dairy Equipment of Lely France, received the Innov'SPACE award 2006 from the French Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Dominique Bussereau.
Until the introduction of the Astronaut A3 robotic milking system, all dairy machines milked the cows at a constant vacuum level and also at the same pulsation rate. The Astronaut A3 milking robot - with its 4Effect pulsation system - offers the facility to automatically adjust the pulsation rate as well as the ratio. This makes it possible to milk each cow, and even each quarter in the best possible way, so that milking conditions can be optimized according to the prevailing milk flow. A cow with a slow milk flow can benefit from a different ratio of pulsation, since adequate stimulation improves the milk flow. If a cow has a strong flow of milk, the Astronaut A3 milking robot will automatically increase the vacuum level beyond 2 kg of milk/minute to ensure faster and more constant milking.
The advantage of the 4Effect pulsation system works two ways and therefore benefits both the dairy farmer and his cows. This cutting edge technology enables dairy farmers to achieve optimum performance from their animals. Optimum performance of cows not only has a direct favourable effect on the average milk flow of the herd, but also significantly increases the total capacity of the robot. Cows benefit from the 4Effect pulsation function, since milking has become much less aggressive and stressful. The 4Effect pulsation system improves udder health for cows with a slow as well as strong flow of milk.
All Astronaut A3 milking robot components communicate by means of CAN-bus technology, a highly reliable and quick data vehicle for communication between various types of electronic equipment. The Astronaut A3 robot is equipped with an auto-diagnosis maintenance system to ensure a further reduction of maintenance time and costs. Via Ethernet connections it can also communicate with other equipment in the barn such as concentrate feeders and selection boxes.
The application of these cutting-edge techniques makes the Astronaut A3 milking robot the most advanced robotic milking system available on today's market.
