Development of User-Integrated Semi-Autonomous Lawn Mowing Systems: A Systems Engineering Perspective and Proposed Architecture

Abstract

This concept paper outlines a conceptual framework for the design and development of user-integrated semi-autonomous lawn mowing systems. This is approached from a systems engineering perspective, considering both hardware and software elements and integration with the user. This is an important and emerging field of study within the several engineering communities, including robotics, agricultural engineering, smart city development, and general systems engineering. In several sections of this paper, a review of current progress on this problem is presented (both in general and related to specific aspects of the system), followed by a discussion of the problem from a systems engineering perspective, a general system architecture developed by the authors, a preliminary set of design requirements, and a discussion of some practical implementation strategies. This work is meant to provide a baseline and motivation for the further development and refinement of these systems within the agricultural engineering and robotics communities and is relevant to both academic and commercial research.

Fuzzy logic track control of an automated lawnmower

“…From the cut area and uncut area, the ALM performance was high at 89.2% which is very close to that achieved [29], [30]. Most of the work done on automated lawn machines does not present the cutting efficiency but reports mostly on the power source [29] and how the machine works [3], [8] hence it is commendable that this work presented the cutting efficiency of the machine. The power consumption is also commendable given the fact that it operated for over three hours without draining the battery.…”

“…The fact that lawn mowing has become a vital aspect of domestic chores in homemaking in the present day requires sufficient investment, time, and effort. This is consequently attended by the rising cost of machinery for lawn mowing operations which is estimated to be US $27.5 billion by 2025 [3]. In addition to the initial cost of lawn mowing machineries, maintenance of mechanized lawn mowing operations accrues the cost of procurement of landscaping machineries.…”

A Hybrid-Layered System for Image-Guided Navigation and Robot-Assisted Spine Surgeries

“…A trio of architectural approaches has emerged in system design to tackle diverse challenges: layered, integrated, and modular architectures [13]. Each method brings distinct benefits, shaping towards an optimal solution.…”

A novel solution with rapid Voronoi-based coverage path planning in irregular environment for robotic mowing systems

“…Based on global positioning system, the sensor fusion is proposed in Wasif (2011). Combining with sonar sensor to identified obstacles, a conceptual framework based on semi-autonomous lawn mowing systems is outlined in Patterson et al (2019), which help the developers to construct a system with engineering perspective on the design of user-integrated, semi-autonomous mowing systems. Nevertheless, the demonstration and the experiment analysis are not discussed in recent study.…”

“…With regard to the senor used on mower, many of early commercial mower using a shallow-buried wire for confining random motion robotic mowers (Patterson et al 2019). This kind of coverage approaches rely on randomized components and heuristics computation which are not efficient (Sportelli et al 2020).…”