A Low-Cost Sensor Array and Test Platform for Automated Roadside Mowing

This letter presents an automated roadside mowing agent. A proof-of-concept testbed was developed based on a low-cost sensor array selected for quick, efficient, and effective roadside mowing. Dead reckoning from shaft-mounted encoders is fused via an extended Kalman filter with absolute positioning and heading information provided by a dual-antenna differential (wide area augmentation system-corrected) global positioning system (GPS) unit, to obtain accurate localization. The dual GPS unit, which includes an integrated gyro, provides accurate drift-free heading, yielding a low-cost high-performance solution. Outdoor tests on grassy and uneven terrain illustrate the success and practicality of the proposed agent. Mowing performance was evaluated based on consistency of consecutive mowing paths: 10.0 cm consistency is attainable. Slow-moving drift inherent in GPS positioning does not substantially affect automated mowing performance, which depends more on positioning precision than accuracy.