Robotics · Grounds Fleets
Systems design
Autonomous Mowers
The pattern is accumulated, not revealed — it has to actually mow
What this is
Fleet mowing for grounds that are a catalogue of the ways land can be difficult — water, sand, tree lines, people. A truck deploys units to assigned zones; each reads the ground and bends its lanes around what it finds, holding when someone crosses and resuming when they have passed. Hi-vis hulls and soft bumpers make the failure mode a nudge, not an incident. One operator, many acres, clean stripes by dusk.
The technical shape
- Fleet model
- truck-deployed units · per-zone assignment · single visible operator
- Autonomy
- terrain-aware steering — water, bunkers, canopies, moving people
- Safety story
- hunter-vest visibility · soft rubber bumper · holds for pedestrians
- Machine
- industrial deck width, drive wheel, rear e-housing, beacon mast
- Stage
- systems design · deployment choreography validated in simulation
The deep end · full technical outline
Outline v2 · expanding
Fleet choreography
One truck, several units, one operator. Units deploy to assigned zones with deliberately offset work phases so they occupy different depths of the ground at any moment; the parked truck registers as a steering obstacle like everything else. Zone gaps and phase offsets are what keep a fleet from reading as bumper cars.
Reading the ground
Lanes are nominal; the terrain gets a vote. Steering is a repulsion field around hazards — water, bunkers, canopies — so stripes bend around what is actually there and settle back, rather than ruling themselves across a map that was wrong. Pedestrian proximity pauses a unit’s work clock entirely: it holds, beacon quickened, and resumes when clear.
The safety story
Visibility first: hunter-vest hulls, a beacon mast, a headlight bar. Compliance second: holds for people, not swerves. And the worst case is engineered soft — a dark rubber bumper on a slow machine. It sees you and stops; if everything fails, it is a nudge.