Autonomous Robotic Mower Control Using a Moving Containment Zone
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Solution Overview
Problem
Robotic lawn mowers often face inefficiencies in covering entire properties due to random travel patterns and varying boundary shapes, leading to uneven cutting and potential getting 'hung-up' in narrow areas, resulting in reduced quality and extended mowing times.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a method and system where an autonomous robotic mower operates within a predefined 'travelling containment zone' that moves across the work region, allowing for controlled and efficient grass cutting by varying the zone's shape and size, and adjusting speed and direction to ensure comprehensive coverage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the mower operates in a random travel pattern within the entire work region, then the mower can access all areas, but the mower may get hung-up in narrow areas and extend mowing time
Solution Approach 1:
The work region is segmented into multiple smaller sub-regions or containment zones that the mower visits sequentially. Each sub-region is sufficiently large to prevent the mower from getting hung-up while ensuring complete coverage of the entire work region over time. This segmentation resolves the contradiction by dividing the large work region into manageable portions that maintain reliability without causing time loss.
Solution Approach 2:
The containment zone boundaries are made dynamic rather than fixed, allowing the mower to transition between different sub-regions. The system dynamically adjusts which sub-region the mower is currently operating in, enabling the mower to escape narrow areas by moving to adjacent zones. This dynamic approach maintains complete coverage while preventing the mower from being trapped in time-consuming situations.
2Reliability
If the mower operates in a random travel pattern within the entire work region, then the mower can potentially cover all areas, but the coverage becomes uneven with some areas mowed longer than needed
Solution Approach 1:
By dividing the work region into discrete sub-regions with defined boundaries, the system ensures that each area is visited a controlled number of times. The mower systematically transitions through segmented zones rather than randomly revisiting areas, which eliminates uneven coverage while maintaining complete coverage of all regions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates feedback mechanisms that track which sub-regions have been mowed and for how long. This feedback allows the controller to adjust the mower's travel pattern to ensure uniform coverage across all areas, preventing both over-mowing and under-mowing while maintaining productivity.
3Manufacturing precision
If the containment zone area is made smaller to improve coverage evenness, then coverage uniformity improves, but the time to complete the entire work region increases
Solution Approach 1:
The work region is divided into multiple sub-regions of optimized size that balance coverage uniformity with operational efficiency. Each sub-region is small enough to ensure even mowing patterns but the collective set of sub-regions covers the entire work region, preventing excessive total mowing time while maintaining uniformity within each zone.
Solution Approach 2:
The mower periodically transitions between different sub-regions in a systematic sequence rather than remaining in one small area continuously. This periodic movement through multiple zones ensures uniform coverage within each zone while the overall cycle time across all zones is optimized to prevent excessive total mowing time.
Data Source
Figure 1A
Figure 1B
Figure 2
AI summary
Apparatus, systems, and methods for directing an autonomous robotic vehicle such as a lawn mower relative to a work region. In some embodiments, the vehicle travels in a random pattern within a travelling containment zone of a lesser size than the work region. The travelling containment zone may move or travel across the work region such that, over time, the travelling containment zone travels over most all of a working surface of the work region.