Anyone who has more than one cat will recognize the problems with ensuring that one feline doesn’t bully the others when it comes to feeding time. Unless you stand over them watching them eat, it’s likely that the bully will end up eating the food from the other cat’s plate, which is not good for either animal.

This Kibble Control machine offers an efficient method of preventing the problem. The system works via RFID tags, an online dashboard and some clever hardware. Fill up the hopper with dry cat food, and then set up the online dashboard with your animal’s feeding times and amounts. Then sit back and watch as the machine regulates who eats what, when.

The software can even tell when one cat is bullying the other (and identify it by the tag) and closes the food tray automatically until the bully goes away. And if a cat tries to eat too much or too quickly, the tray again closes to regulate matters. You also get some useful reports to help you track eating and bullying habits. Can your cat say busted?

All in all it looks like a very interesting method of cat feeding control, and since it’s all done via an Internet connected system, it’s got bags of room for additional features, like an on-board camera etc. It’s only in design form at the moment, and only for dry food, but we say it looks like a winner from here. [Via]