Autonomous mower

ArduRover Chassis -- deprecated
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I have no experience with rovers while several years of experience with multirotors and APM/Pixhawk.

I would like to turn my 16HP Weed Eater mower in an autonomous mower .

The idea is to replace the manual steering with a electric one from automotive and to use a RTK M8P gps to allow precise positioning during grass cutting missions.

Any suggestions are welcome

1 Like
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Its a great idea - looking forward to the photo’s and videos.

Thanks, Grant.

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Sounds like a great application for collision avoidance too!

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I follow your proyect too, I have this idea in my wishlist for many time :smiley: ; I was suggested to replace the steering with an electric automotive one too, perhaps that`s the way.

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Happy that this topic get some interest :slight_smile:

Fortunately my mower has an Hydrostatic trasmission , so the only actuators I’ll need apart the steering will be

  • brake actuator , actually a pedal that disengage a pulley on the transmission belt
  • Automatic transmission, a lever that has an operation similar to the automatic gearbox of a car with the nice feature of reverse position that can be used to stop or reduce the speed of the mower , something that a car cannot do.

I have bought a used electric steering unit for 100$, will receive it in a couple of weeks and start to work on it.
In the meantime, I’ll post some photos of my mower.

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Hi,
this is the mower without the steering wheel but with the electric steering unit on the side, as expected it is a brushed motor and I will use a Sabertooth I already have to drive it.

weedeater.jpg1024×768 172 KB

Unfortunately the original bevel gear is very basic and I would like to improve it, any suggestions ?

steering.jpg800×720 74.1 KB