The performance of the robotized milking parlours: results of a theoretical study

Milking automation is an important technological advance in dairy cow housing. Nevertheless its diffusion in the form of AMS stations meets relevant limits in the modularity, cost and difficult adaptation to the existing buildings. Therefore robotization of the traditional milking parlours can be an interesting alternative for many farms, especially when strict limitations to the milking time are imposed, as for some typical cheese productions like the Parmesan cheese. A feasibility study was therefore carried out to check the convenience of applying a simple robotic arm to the common parlour layouts. For this purpose a simulation software was set up capable of calculating the productive performances of various functional schemes of parlours. Two different parlour configurations have been examined: one with a linear arrangement of stalls (tandem type), the other one, a circular rotary.