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Success story 2

Ethernet switches for Lely Astronaut milking robots

The Lely Astronaut milking robot, provided by Dutch company Lely Industries N.V. and sold worldwide in thousands of units is since 2006 available as the Lely Astronaut A3 version. This new product further enhances productivity and service provided to farmers. It supports Ethernet protocol to optimise data communication efficiency and to further reduce costs. As these robots are designed to work 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, reliability was a key issue, along with an optimised cost/functionality ratio, in Lely's decision to integrate WESTERMO SDW-550 Ethernet switches.
 

When launching the Astronaut robotic milking system, Lely introduced an entirely new concept in milking equipment. Robotic milking is not just another way to milk cows, but rather another method of farm management. Advanced sensor techniques and an integrated farm management programme, provide state-of-the-art tools for a highly efficient milking process and milk quality control. With the T4C management program, it is possible to manage the data of each individual cow. The cow is free to visit the robot when it chooses and as often as she likes. In most cases the cow is milked more then 2 times a day, this results in yield increases of up to 20%. A milk quality control system ensures optimum control of udder health and milk quality by means of colour and conductivity measuring.


The Lely Astronaut milking robot ensures complete handling of the milking process from pre-treatment, through connecting the teat cups, up to (thanks to laser sensors) and including after-treatment by means of an udder treatment spray. Reliability and fast processing are key issues. One cannot stop the cows producing milk by pressing a button; Lely Astronaut milking robot is a 24/7 working machine and all breakdowns have to be solved as soon as possible. For instance, at the end of the milking every robot requests if it is allowed to pump the milk to the main milk tank. Sometimes the milk has to be transferred to an external bucket because the cow had antibiotics or is producing colustrum (first milk for the calf). This decision - and the corresponding pumping - have to be processed quickly in order to allow the next cow to be milked. All data related to each milking is also processed in real time, including information on milk quality, and are registered in the T4C management system, the management software of the Astronaut robot.

With the new Lely Astronaut A3 milking robot, Lely went one step further: etering the industrial Ethernet area. All of the peripherals are linked to the central supervision PC via Ethernet network. Due to the high level of automation of the Lely Astronaut A3 milking robot, WESTERMO SDW 550 switches for harsh environment were chosen. "Our robots work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and with our first implementation or Ethernet network in our Astronaut system we wanted to have the highest levels of reliability. That was the main reason for choosing WESTERMO SDW-550. Furthermore it is an unmanaged Ethernet switch that has been designed to be a cost effective solution for harsh environment applications. It had a perfect fit for purpose for our application and the price/functionality ratio was very good," says Sander J.P. Van LEEUWEN, Product Specialist Robotic Milking Systems.

The SDW-550 switches are a key device of the Ethernet network. They are used for real time data communication management between the PC (where the information about the cows, milking, milk quality, feed take as well as the setup of the machines and the Lely Astronaut A3 milking robots is stored) and several additional peripherals.




Amongst those peripherals are:

• direction system: an extra peripheral that can be added to send the cows to a paddock when they don't need to get milked within a certain period, or to send the cow to a separate area to distance the cow from the herd for veterinary checks etc.
• cleaning system: for hygiene and food regulations, as every part that contacts the milk must be cleaned 3 times a day
• feeding system
• alarm system: when the robot needs assistance because a cow requires supervision during milking or something is broken and the robot cannot continue the milking. In this case the farmer needs to be informed as soon as possible. The alarm system gives a call to the farmer and tells him what failure has occurred to take the robot out of operation with the Lely Astronaut A3 Milking Robots).

 "Through our supplier Modelec, Westermo's distributor in the Netherlands, we have been offered several options. Based on our criteria the Westermo switch was the best choice. Also the availability of other products like the Ethernet extender and a wide Ethernet product range set us in the direction of Westermo. We also benefit from Modelec's technical support for developing our network so as to have the best farm performance network." Add Mr Van LEEUWEN.

The SDW-550 has 5 TX (copper) 10/100 Mbit/s ports. These ports are set up for auto-negotiation of line speed and full or half duplex connection; however DIP switches do allow each port to be individually configured if necessary. All 5 ports support MDI/MDI-X which means there will never be a problem as to whether to use a standard or crossover patch cable. The connection at each TX port is individually isolated to help prevent earth loop problems within the network. The units have a wide DC power input range with polarity protection as well as being able to accept power from dual sources with an extended temperature range supported as standard, from -13°F to 185°F. For this application, ERG needed 3 ports, but the SDW-550 has two more, allowing additional RJ45 connectors to be plugged in from other on-board systems.