A system for determining the position of a milking animal and its teats having a robotic arm for attaching milking cups and cameras for determining positions of the animal and its teats
586160 Disclosed is a milking system (3) comprising a milking stall (5) for housing an animal (8) during milking and an arrangement provided for determining the position of the animal (8) in the milking stall (5). The milking system (3) comprises a robot (14) for attaching teat cups (11) to the teats of the animal (8). The robot (14) comprises a first camera (21) and first image processing means (22) provided for detecting the teats of the animal (8) and determining their positions. The robot (14) is also operatively connected to the arrangement for determining the position of the animal (8) and adapted to move the teat cups (11) towards the udder of the animal (8) based on the determined position of the animal (8). The arrangement for determining the position of the animal (8) comprises a second camera (24), which is a three-dimensional camera, directed towards the animal (8), and provided to record a three-dimensional image of the animal (8) and second image processing means (25) provided for detecting the animal (8) and determining its position in at least one spatial dimension (x) based on the three-dimensional image of the animal (8). The second image processing means (25) is provided to form a three-dimensional surface representation of a portion of the animal (8) from the three-dimensional image of the animal (8) and analyse the surface of the three-dimensional surface representation. The second image processing means (25) is also arranged to determine the position of the animal (8) based on the analysis of the surface of the three-dimensional surface representation.
