I have filled out a contact form with some questions for our device manufacturer and am awaiting a response to some questions. From what I can see (the website has little information) is that this is a device using LIDAR in a binocular (biphasic ?) form (two laser emitters and receivers). This set up will allow them to get a 3D image and using a 360 degree scan establish the body volume of the animal. Then it gets tricky. Are they assuming a body unit density to compute weight? I am asking them how they differentiate among animals with different tissue types such as say a fat steer versus a thin feeder. Also you must be between 10 to 15 feet distance from the animal on all points of the compass. How long this takes is not known. You animals had better be tame to make this work.
The LIDAR unit itself is housed in an expansion slot in a tablet PC. The tablet is ruggedized to some degree but not likely to the amount I would like to see. I buy laptops with expansion slots all the time and they are not cheap as far as PCs go. They cost any where from $ 4,500 to $ 9,000 with out the LIDAR unit. The sort of PC that would work here is a Switchback by Black Diamond. They cost around $ 6,500 with out the LIDAR unit that has to be packaged to go in to their custom expansion slots. The problem with the switchback is that it has a hard drive and hard drives are vulnerable to shock damage. The best unit would be a PDA with flash drive memory and custom standardized package for the LIDAR electronics.
Looking at the big picture this unit will never be accurate enough to use for legal trade. It will give readings good enough for relative weights (ratios) if the errors are relatively constant across environmental conditions and cattle types. This unit will also likely require yearly calibration and maintenance adding to its total cost.
The scale has the advantage of being able to weigh other things depending on its type and can be bought in commercial versions for commercial trade. Given the cost of the LIDAR and its host PC a scale to weight cattle can be had that is more accurate and has less technical risk