~ Beckhoff and Peacock Technology collaborate for teat care automation ~
For nearly two decades, Peacock Technology has worked at the intersection of engineering and innovation, delivering electronic, software, AI and automation solutions across a wide range of industries. This breadth of experience has positioned the consultancy to tackle complex, real-world challenges with robust, scalable automation.
Building on this foundation, Peacock’s dairy division, Intelligent Dairy Solutions (IDS), has developed a suite of robotic systems designed to improve udder hygiene, reduce disease risk, and help dairy farms operate more consistently at scale. Drawing on deep expertise in robotics, machine vision and electronics design, IDS focuses on delivering repeatable, high-quality processes in environments where reliability is critical.
Central to this work are two products developed in collaboration with automation and control specialist Beckhoff: the IDS Pre-Brush Robot, which automates pre-milking teat preparation, and the IDS Post-Spray Robot, which delivers precise post-milking disinfection. Working together, these systems create a complete teat-care workflow around the milking event, supporting animal welfare, milk quality, and efficient dairy operations.
The challenge: consistent teat care in real farm conditions
Teat preparation and post-milking disinfection are proven, essential practices for maintaining udder health and controlling mastitis. However, on busy farms these tasks are time-consuming, physically demanding and vulnerable to inconsistency. Throughput can be jeopardised and infection risk increased by variations in cleaning pressure, coverage, contact time and spray application. With labour pressure continuing across the sector, farms need solutions that maintain — and ideally improve — hygiene standards without adding workload.
The IDS team’s view was simple: if robotics and vision can reliably handle the repetitive parts of teat care, staff can focus on higher-value herd management and the farm benefits from the same quality of process every time.
“Teat preparation happens hundreds of times a day, every day. The quality of that preparation directly affects cow comfort and udder health. Our goal with the IDS Pre-Brush Robot was to bring repeatable, high-standard cleaning to every cow, without adding strain on people or slowing the parlour down,” said Stuart MacLennan, CEO of Peacock Technology.
IDS Pre-Brush Robot: automated pre-milking preparation
The IDS Pre-Brush Robot is designed for rotary milking parlours and automates pre-milking teat cleaning using a robotic arm equipped with a brush tool. A 3D vision system identifies the cow and locates the teats in real time, confirming coordinates for the teats and that the arm has safe access. The robot then positions the brush precisely, applying consistent cleaning pressure and coverage to remove contaminants before milking begins.
One of the most important phases in the teat-care cycle is pre-milking preparation. Reliable cleaning promotes improved milk quality, lowers the risk of mastitis, and lessens the bacterial load on teat surfaces. By eliminating a significant amount of repetitive work for employees, automating this step also improves ergonomics and lowers the possibility of hurried or neglected preparation during peak cycles.
“The Pre-Brush has to work in the real world – wet environments, variable cow behaviour, and tight cycle times. The combination of robust vision and deterministic control is what lets us deliver dependable cleaning without compromising throughput,” added Gary Miller, Service Team Manager at Peacock Technology.
Alongside Pre-Brush, IDS continues to deploy the IDS Post-Spray Robot to disinfect teats immediately after milking. Similar to brushing, a robotic arm is guided to each teat by 3D vision, which provides precise coverage with the right amount of chemical. A key component of preventing mastitis is immediate post-milking disinfection, and automation ensures consistent application for each cow in the herd.
Pre-Brush and Post-Spray work together to provide a complete teat care package before and after milking, enhancing hygiene at the two most important times.
Why Beckhoff: compact control, EtherCAT integration and safety
To deliver the IDS teat-care systems, Peacock needed a control platform that could integrate with robotics, machine vision, provide safety, and I/O on a single system in order to achieve the speed and accuracy needed in a rotary parlour. The C6015 series embedded PC and EJ plug-in I/O modules from Beckhoff offered the ideal balance of scalability, robustness, and compactness. The architecture allows Peacock to place I/O exactly where needed, minimise wiring, and keep the control system service-friendly for farm environments.
“Beckhoff stood out to us as the right platform for our own products. Having worked with many automation suppliers over the years, the fact that Beckhoff developed EtherCAT means seamless integration across robotics, safety and distributed I/O. Running everything on a single EtherCAT backbone dramatically reduces wiring, improves diagnostics, and streamlines system design, with direct, real-time input to the robot via the PLC and HMI — giving us a clean, scalable path to add new features and grow the product family,” said Gareth Hughes, COO at Peacock Technology.
While TwinSAFE allows safety devices and logic to be integrated over EtherCAT, Beckhoff’s TwinCAT software offers a unified engineering environment for motion, I/O, safety, and HMI development. This degree of integrated safety is essential for a robotic system that operates around humans and animals. It also makes the long-term support model, fault-finding, and machine construction simpler.
Bespoke electronics: a key Peacock speciality
A distinctive part of this partnership is Peacock’s in-house capability to design and manufacture bespoke electronics. Rather than treating the controller and I/O as off-the-shelf add-ons, Peacock developed a custom PCB that integrates the Beckhoff C6015 PLC platform and EJ I/O modules directly into an application-specific, farm-ready control assembly.
Using the EJ modules also enabled the inclusion of a bespoke microprocessor-driven network switch, providing enhanced security and built-in component integrity checks. The PCB further allows direct integration of force-guided relays and our preferred I/O connection types, resulting in a robust, highly integrated control solution tailored to the application.
That electronics expertise is not limited to Peacock’s own IDS product line. Peacock has additionally produced custom PCBs using Beckhoff EJ modules for other Beckhoff clients through its consulting business, allowing OEMs across various industries to take advantage of the same flexible architecture and compact, high-performance PLC technology while including application specific functionality. As a result, customers have confidence in long-term reliability and support thanks to a shared technology base that Peacock thoroughly understands, from board layout to field commissioning.
“We’re not just integrating components; we’re engineering the whole control layer to suit real-world agricultural environments. Having the electronics capability in-house means we can build a tighter, more reliable system around Beckhoff’s platform,” added MacLennan.
Remote support built for rural deployment
Intelligent Dairy Solutions (IDS) systems are used in harsh agricultural settings where downtime can quickly become costly. As a result, remote monitoring and diagnostics are built right in. Peacock’s IDS team provides field support engineers with secure remote access through HMI tools and Beckhoff’s embedded PC platform. This is especially helpful for remote farms and international installations since it enables quick triage and software updates without requiring an on-site visit. The IoT functionality of the C6015 and flexibility of the TwinCAT has allowed Peacock to produce centralised monitoring dashboards that allow proactive service response for their in house service team or in smaller clusters for their distribution network.
“From Beckhoff’s perspective, the key aspect for us is connectivity. Farms are often in remote areas, so it’s vital that our products can seamlessly connect with robotics, sensors and higher-level systems. With our PLC, EtherCAT and TwinCAT ecosystem, Peacock can integrate everything and keep it serviceable long-term,” commented Adam Carless, Application Engineer at Beckhoff UK.
Results for farms: hygiene, welfare and efficiency
With the IDS Pre-Brush Robot providing consistent pre-milking preparation and the IDS Post-Spray Robot delivering precise post-milking disinfection, farms benefit from more reliable teat hygiene. Bacterial load is reduced before milking, while teats are disinfected immediately afterward, helping to lower mastitis risk and support healthier udders.
The robots improve cow comfort through repeatable, gentle brushing and ensure a high level of operational consistency, regardless of staffing levels. By reducing repetitive manual labour, they free staff to focus on higher-value tasks, while integrated safety features and remote support contribute to improved diagnostics and greater system uptime.
A partnership built for scale
Beckhoff and Peacock Technology’s partnership combines field-tested agricultural automation with reliable PLC-based control. IDS is expanding robotic teat-care from a single task to an end-to-end hygiene process, with Pre-Brush serving as the flagship system and Post-Spray completing the teat-care loop.
The need for dependable, integrated automation will only increase as dairy operations continue to grow and labour issues continue to exist. The next generation of Intelligent Dairy Solutions systems will have a solid foundation thanks to Beckhoff’s open EtherCAT-based platform and Peacock’s practical engineering focus.
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