Patent ID: 8037845

Claim:
A detecting arrangement for a magnetic gripper device mountable on a robot arm of a milking robot provided for automatically attaching teat cups to teats of a milking animal, wherein the magnetic gripper device is adapted for gripping teat cups made of or including a magnetic material and having a primary coil feedable with a current and a core of a magnetic material arranged at least partly within the primary coil, said detecting arrangement comprising: a device for repetitively measuring at least one of a magnetic field and an inductance, and determining a change of measurement of the least one of the magnetic field and the inductance when a teat cup is present at, or gripped by, the magnetic gripper device; and a device for repetitively detecting whether the magnetic gripper device is holding a teat cup or not based on said repeated measurement of the at least one of the magnetic field and the inductance.