Development and Performance Evaluation of a Robot for Lawn Mowing

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) through robotic system offer solutions to the quest for autonomous system with high cutting efficiency for lawn mowing. This work discusses the design, fabrication as well as the performance evaluation of a prototype robot for lawn mowing. The Auto-desk Inventor 2018 was used for the computer aided design and simulation of the automatic lawn mower. The electrical circuit connections between the microcontroller and the rest of the electrical systems was also designed with the aim of producing a system that can cut grass at high efficiency with little or no human intervention. The machine was incorporated with GPS, cameras, infrared and ultrasonic sensors for the detection and avoidance of obstacles. The control systems comprises of the Arduino micro-controller which controls the two geared motors alternatively in order to control the direction of the lawn mower. This is done according to the readings from the sensors governed by the C-programmed instructions fed into the micro- controller. The fabrication of the robot was done with the combination of machining and assembly operations in the machine shop and the results obtained from the performance evaluation indicated that the developed robot can autonomously avoid obstacles, make 180 degree turn and cut a lawn to an even height at high efficiency. Hence, this work provides a self-governing lawn mower that can cut grass at high efficiency and avoid obstacles thus minimizing human drudgery.