US 7,490,576 B2
Time of flight teat location system
Leonard Metcalfe, Surrey (Canada); and Cor Maas, Heerlen (Netherlands)
Assigned to LMI Technologies Ltd, Dublin (Ireland)
Filed on Sep. 13, 2006, as Appl. No. 11/531,672.
Claims priority of application No. 2539645 (CA), filed on Mar. 15, 2006.
Prior Publication US 2007/0215052 A1, Sep. 20, 2007
Int. Cl. A01J 5/00 (2006.01); A01J 5/017 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 119—14.08  [119/14.14] 3 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. In an automated milking system having milking apparatus for extracting milk from a plurality of teats on a live animal, use of a light source for illuminating said teats and a two-dimensional array camera having a plurality of pixels that are capable of individually providing time of flight data for capturing and delivering data for determining the location of said teats in three dimensions.