MultiRob will be awarded a silver medal

The new, mobile cleaning robot for the cattle barn. The Multirob automatically cleans gangways and high boxes, and can also bed them in again if required.

The "MultiRob" cleaning robot from Peter Prinzing GmbH (www.prinzing.eu) will be awarded a silver medal at Eurotier 2018 (Hall 12 Booth D25).

While the running surfaces in dairy cowsheds can be cleaned more or less automatically several times a day by means of manure removal slides, the care of cubicles is mainly still done by hand. Peter Prinzing GmbH, in cooperation with the Institute for Mobile Machines and Commercial Vehicles of the Technical University of Braunschweig and the Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Animal Husbandry of the Bavarian State Institute (LfL), has developed an autonomously moving manure removal slide for slatted floors, which also takes care of the cubicle care. The development was supported with federal research funds (BLE project management) and by the German Industrial Partnership for Agriculture (Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank).

The "MultiRob" is equipped with a swivelling, rotating brush for cleaning the rear third of high lying boxes as well as with a discharge device for floury bedding. For cleaning the running surface, a pendulum suspended scraper blade is used. During commissioning, two precise laser scanners automatically create a stable map, which is used during operation to determine the robot position in the stable and to carry out the dynamic route guidance. Intelligent algorithms evaluate the sensors, detect obstacles in the near and far range and adjust the route in real time to avoid collisions. All actions - work completion, localization, obstacle detection and collision avoidance - can be logged on the vehicle computer and made available web-based. This vehicle computer handles automated machine control and human-machine communication via a local radio network. The MuiltiRob detects occupied cubicles or obstacles on the stable aisles, avoids them and continues the actual driving route afterwards. The work routines carried out are logged and deviations from the specification are treated individually in the next trip. The MultiRob makes it possible to relieve the maintenance of high boxes and the cleaning of slatted floors in various cattle stalls of the human workload.