Robotic Lawn Mowers
- A View from the Ground Up
It looks like a low-flying UFO and sounds like a vacuum cleaner, gliding back and forth across the lawn on autopilot. Passers-by point and gawk, looking around for the film crew for the next "Terminator" movie. But the only thing being terminated is the top of the grass – mulched into tiny bits as the android does its work.
One deal-breaking obstacle has been the need to run perimeter wires (which can be a daylong task itself) before being able to mow the lawn. Consumer-grade robotic mowers also tend to run in random patterns, with results that often aren't very pretty.
If you are a lawn care professional, you also need to keep in mind that consumer models also aren’t built to withstand the demand of being put into service several times a day, every day, like their commercial grade manual counterparts.
Other limitations have to be compensated with manual labor, defeating any benefits a contractor might hope to derive from using most robotic mowers available to date. As a result, for the past decade this technology has been largely a non-issue for the green industry.
But changes are coming. Recent advances are starting to address the specific requirements of landscape professionals, suggesting the potential to replace one crew member with a robotic mower on a variety of job sites. “With labor in short supply, if you can spend more on equipment and less on labor and reduce your overall costs, that’s incentive to consider the technology,” says Don DeFever, CLP, president of Jensen Landscape Services, Inc. in Cupertino.
Some commercial-grade robotic mowers are already in service, most notably on golf courses and even at a U.S. Army post. However, this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison because the mowers are mostly dedicated to those particular sites. For robotics to be profitable to the landscape contractor, manufacturers must account for multiple-site applications, as well as a broad range of both business and site conditions.
It may not be as far off (or as far-fetched) as you might think. Should robotic mowers become a viable alternative – as manufacturers hope they will – this technology could help solve one of the biggest problems faced by the landscape industry. “An automated solution to the labor shortage?” muses Richard Cohen, president of Richard Cohen Landscape & Construction, Inc. in Lake Forest. “Sounds exciting to me! If it’s true, there would be some real advantages. For one, I don’t think the mower would call in sick or get injured out on the job.”
# The technology could also enhance safety. In 2005 there were approximately 72,000 reported emergency room visits for injuries related to lawn mowers in the U.S. But none of them involved a robotic mower.
Making the grade
To be a viable alternative, a robotic mower must be able to perform the same functions as a human operator at the controls of a manual mower, including:
- cutting in defined patterns
- handling slopes
- managing high, low, and wet spots
- steering around obstacles
- responding safely to approaching people and animals
- "learning" the yard the first time and remembering it
- and getting the job done with minimal correction.
It also needs to be simple to maintain with comprehensive manufacturer support.
Another consideration – especially on the front end of this technology – is that until robotic mowers become more commonplace, they will likely draw too much attention to be practical in certain commercial situations.
“I can see them working in more controlled settings, such as large corporate, commercial and industrial turf sites with security and employees who can be guided to leave them alone,” DeFever says. “But I don’t think they would be a fit for multi-family residential sites or retail settings due to curiosity by the population. If you have to hang out with them while they work, you defeat your labor savings.”
On the other hand, DeFever – a tech enthusiast who was among the first to use a nylon cord weed eater on job sites in the early-‘70s – says he can also see an upside to the curiosity factor.
“It would be quite a conversation piece. Like for Silicon Valley companies, or for a client with a high-end residence who would think it’s pretty cool. But it would have to be something that actually works for the contractor and brings a good return on investment.”
A certain amount of human interaction would still be required even in the best of circumstances. Obstacles need to be cleared, but they have to be anyway even with manual operations. The mower must be simple to program (once per site unless the configuration changes) – however the time required may compare to training a human worker for a new site. And the human crew members doing other tasks need to be near enough to ward off curious onlookers.
The upsides to deploying robotic mowers could very well be worth it.
“The main considerations are efficiency, reducing labor and worker compensation costs, improving ROI, and enhancing safety,” DeFever points out. “There haven’t been many technological improvements in our industry that can claim most of these benefits. The laser level was one. And if we had ignored ET controllers, with legislation mandating their installation in the next few years, where would we be today?
"This is the type of cutting-edge technology that we need to pay attention to.”
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