Robot lawn mowers are a massive shift in our thinking as to how a lawn mower should work. Over the years there have been different types of mower like the hover mowers and the rechargeable push mowers but the robot mower is a complete move away from anything conventional. For big lawns every one always thinks it needs to be a tractor that cuts it. They are wrong, the robot mowers will cruise around a vast expanse of grass in its own time and do a perfect job.
Great, it all sounds wonderful but how do they actually work? It sounds like a good idea but what sort of technology can do this? It’s robotic technology. The growth in robotic technology over the last ten years has been vast and has moved into so many areas of day to day life making jobs easier and more manageable. As the technology improves the uses for it grow and the price goes down which gives us these very accessible robot machines like robotic mowers.
Robot Mower Technology
Below we are going to look at some of the technologies that are used in most robot mowers to help them get around the garden without getting smashed to pieces or dropping over a wall and also ensuring that every blade of grass gets cut.
Mapping Out Your Lawn
The really clever bit is how these robotic mowers know which bits if lawn to cut and witch bits have been cut already. When they get near to running out of charge they take themselves back to the charge station and once charged go back to the spot that they stopped to continue cutting. Impressive! The mower use various sensors to map out the garden and trace their steps including GPS, grass length sensors, sensors that detect the boundary wire and collision sensors. All of the feedback from these sensors allows the robot mower to make decisions about where to cut next making sure it does not keep going over the same patches.
Most models require you to install a wire around the perimeter of the lawn and around any obstacles like trees and flower beds. Once the sensors detect they are up to a perimeter they will back away and carry on cutting inside the wire. There are a couple that don’t require this like the Mythos Basic robot mower. These wires will stop it falling over any edges.
These are important and stop your mower coming back looking like its been rammed by a car! They detect any objects in the way of the mower and stop it before it hits them. If your garden is a complicated shape or has things left in it frequently then this something you need to make sure you mower has if you want it to last.
The robotic mowers can be set up using in built software to cut the lawn at specific times and they can also be controlled from smart phones and other remote devices to cut when you need it. This means you don’t ever have to touch it, just let it go. If you need it cut at a certain time just switch it on and it will go.
This might not seam like a technology but it helps massively in how they operate. The units are small and light which means it doesn’t need a massive motor to power it along and extends the battery life. This is especially the case if they are replacing a tractor that not only mows the lawn by using a very heavy engine but it also has to carry the driver!
The growth in battery technology has enabled powerful Lithium-ion batteries to be used that give the mower a long charge time allowing it to cruise around the lawn powering the motor with ease. The batteries are fast charging so if the mower runs out it just pops back for some more charge and is off again. The quick charge times and long battery life mean that large areas of lawn can be maintained reliably by there machines, old conventional batteries would not have the power to do such a job.
The robot mowers are mostly powered by brushless electric motors. The motors are very reliable compared to a petrol engine and very efficient when it comes to the amount of electricity they use. They are a very cheap way of maintaining your lawn as well as keeping it looking amazing. Electric motors have far fewer moving parts than a petrol mower which means they are very low maintenance and cheaper to maintain. As so many vehicles are moving to electric motors the technology is moving forward rapidly and the robot mowers benefit from this.
The blade technology is an important part of making these mowers effective. The key to them working autonomously is that they dispose of any waste created themselves. The blades are specially shaped to not only cut the grass but to dice it up into dust like particles that are dropped onto the surface which then falls down to the soil. This known as mulching and has a number of benefits. You are not gathering loads of grass cuttings to dispose of and you are feeding the lawn with the cut grass. When you go out on to the lawn there will be no messy cuttings lying on the top it will be completely clear and the regular scheduled cutting will keep it that way.
As you can see there is a lot of technology that is poured into these machines that enables them to do fantastic job in your garden. It is very impressive technology that we would not have had in our homes a few years ago but has now revolutionised garden management for many people.
If you love the look of the technology and think it could really help in your house then we would advise you to read our reviews and consider investing in one of the models that suits your requirements.