Robot Sheep Shearing Looks Like Animal Abuse, Apparently Isn’t
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 4 of May , 2009 at 3:18 am
So, okay, we have robots that milk cows. It stands to reason, then, that someone would come up with a robot that shears sheep. The difference is, it seems, that while cows are perfectly happy to stand there and have their bits pulled on, sheep tend to object to having all of their hair shaved off. This necessitates a sheep restraint system that looks pretty vicious but the people who designed it, who know a thing or two about sheep, claim that what you’re about to see “isn’t disturbing for a sheep, hard to believe, isn’t it? In our tests, sheep often fell asleep and showed no signs afterwards of any ill-effects from being constrained.”
That certainly looks disturbing to me, but what do I know? The Shear Magic robotic sheep shearing system dates from the late 90s, but it never ended up being commercially viable, probably because the robotic system is not significantly faster or more efficient than having a human do it. And sheep everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief.
[ Shear Magic ]
Comments (6)
Category: Industrial
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Comment by Zool
Made Monday, 4 of May , 2009 at 5:18 am
That is seriously scary looking. The problem with shearing is if the animal moves, which is exactly where AI struggles to deal with unexpected situations. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. I guess thats why they are using a stretch rack!
I’m wondering if they have another button that turns the sheep around over a fire and then adds the Mint Sauce.
Comment by Matt
Made Monday, 4 of May , 2009 at 12:11 pm
The robot dates from the late ’80’s not the ’90’s. The compute power back then mean’t long compute times and the shearing wasn’t quick enough for commercial shearing. As for the sheep abuse, the accuracy was good with less cuts than human shearing. Do remember that human shearers are paid per sheep and basically grab the sheep in a headlock and stretch it in various positions to shear it. As for animal movement to robot used structured light and basic sheep stats to create an open loop path for the shearing head and a custom capacitance sensor on the cutter to modify the path due to sheep breathing.
Comment by Fran6Ko
Made Thursday, 7 of May , 2009 at 4:53 am
It’s very very horrible!!! The man who construct this machine is a big big big big a** hole and i want shave his face and the hair with the same machine. It’s bad m***** f*****!!
Je suis français et je trouve ça totalement inhumain.
No more swearing or you will be eviscerated. -Editor
Comment by sheep
Made Saturday, 9 of May , 2009 at 6:44 pm
Feels good man.
Comment by Daryl
Made Monday, 25 of May , 2009 at 1:37 am
seems wierd as a shearer to see a machine designed to do what I do the so called head locks and other stretching holds are designed to stretch the skin under the wool so that when the shears pass over the hide it has no wrinkles in it. This minimises the times when a fold of skin can get caught between the teeth of the comb and get caught I suppose a robot never get tired of has to take a pee but then a robot won’t neccisarily know the difference between the different breeds of sheep with variances in body shape, wool growth and looseness of skin. My job is safe, a robot will be more of a butcher than any human shearer. After all if a shearer cut an animal that’s a dock in his pay, if he does it too much he doesn’t come back the next day. Farmers like to keep their breeding ewes in one piece afterall, and even slaughter animals neep to go to the abbatoir healthy and without infection or they are not fit for human consumpion. Which equals no profit for the farmer and no job for the shearer.
Comment by r-chy
Made Tuesday, 2 of June , 2009 at 1:30 pm
I’m wondering if they have another button that turns the sheep around over a fire and then adds the Mint Sauce.
Comment by Eric Wolfsbane
Made Friday, 11 of September , 2009 at 1:04 pm
So, do you expect me to talk?
No, Mr. Baa-hnd, I expect you to die.
Comment by i h8 u
Made Monday, 19 of October , 2009 at 4:19 am
the sheep goes thru no pain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! these people know what they are doing, they are not just cruel people who want the sheep to go through pain! they try to make it as nice as possible for the sheep!!!!!!!
Comment by stok
Made Monday, 18 of January , 2010 at 4:38 am
Yes it simply bomb! Such tremendous shots, they will be pleasant both green and red
Comment by mobile
Made Monday, 18 of January , 2010 at 4:44 am
I’m a little worried ’bout the sheep!