The chickens would, after awhile, start avoiding the robot, and only the terminally stupid would be measured... -Adam Anton van Straaten wrote: > > A simple, relatively inexpensive technique would be a roaming robot scale. > It would have a weighing platform big enough to support just one chicken, > and a food dispenser, perhaps containing some type of food that's more > desirable than the normal feed (is there a chicken equivalent of catnip?) > > When the robot detects a chicken on the platform, it would weigh it. After > getting a solid reading, it would close the food dispenser, and tilt the > scale surface to tip the chicken off. It would then move off to another > area of the barn, reset itself, open the food dispenser and wait for another > chicken. > > It would be a heck of a lot cheaper and simpler than developing a > vision-based system or criss-crossing the barn with laser beams or > chicken-herding barriers. > > But if you really like the vision-based approach, the idea above could be > complicated by adding a retinal scanner at the food dispenser. That way, > you'd know if you were weighing the same chicken twice. > > Anton