Long meg strange horticulture location1/17/2024 When the route is stored, the mowers can begin navigating on their own. To use the mowers, an operator at the start of the season rides them along the perimeter of the grounds while the software stores a map of the path and the terrain. Sagalovich said he designed the prototype in about a year. “This has the potential where we could have some of the mowers run overnight.”Īdvances in GPS and other technologies allowed the autonomous mowers to be developed relatively quickly. “We’re always having work, like trim work, that we sometimes don’t get to because we’re mowing all the grounds,” Jacobson said. For park districts, where playing fields are used constantly during the spring, summer and fall, the ability to mow anytime with minimal labor would be an obvious benefit. He also sees the mowers being used during off hours to maximize usage. Once the technology advances further, Jacobson said, he envisions the mowers tending to more difficult areas such as the sloped berms along Interstate 88. The mowers require only one person to keep an eye on them, and that person could trim trees, weed, mulch or complete various other tasks while the grass gets cut. “We’re trying to define what a smart city means.” “I’m always telling people who can’t believe their eyes that this is really happening,” said Sagalovich, a software engineer specializing in robotics. Not only do the mowers offer a solution for the continuing labor crunch, Sagalovich said, but they’re also environmentally friendlier, quieter and require less maintenance than gas-powered counterparts. They might look strange in action - rolling on their own like giant Roomba vacuum cleaners - but autonomous mowers may represent the future of landscaping. The Naperville Park District and Morton Arboretum are among the clients currently testing the mowers as interest grows in the burgeoning technology. Naperville-based Havenshine Technologies developed the autonomous electric mowers, capable of cutting acres of grassland with little human effort. That second glance confirms the riding mowers have no riders. When Ilya Sagalovich and his team unload their riding mowers and turn them loose on Monarch Park in Naperville, it’s quickly clear these aren’t normal grass cutters. They’re guaranteed at least a double take from curious onlookers.
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