Autonomous Mowing Robot
Ready, set, go…
The Autonomous Mowing Robot is designed to assist landscaping contractors reduce their labour needs while improving mowing profitability.
The top challenges in today’s landscaping industry have been identified as labour availability, seasonality and profitability. The current environment has seen many industries struggle to gain and hold employees. The seasonality of the landscaping industries sees staff numbers fluctuate making it a risky choice between letting employees go or paying them through the quieter, not-so-profitable low season to retain them.
RC Mowers recognized these inherent issues within this industry, and being at the forefront of innovation they found a solution – designing and manufacturing their Autonomous Mowing Robot (AMR) line.
Unveiled in October 2022, the AMR is designed to assist landscaping contractors reduce their labour needs and scale their businesses to manage fewer employees while improving mowing profitability.
The AMR allows one operator to generate the same revenue as a crew of three. This creates opportunity for landscape businesses to increase profitability from mowing, which is traditionally the number one source of revenue but also often the least profitable.
Although incredibly advanced, operating the AMR is quite simple. Using a smart phone app, the operator mows a perimeter plan for each AMR and then mows around any ‘keep out’ areas, such as gardens or water features. The operator will then enable autonomous mode and the mowers go to work, mowing everything inside the perimeters, avoiding the ‘keep out’ areas and unexpected obstacles (stationary or moving). Three AMRs can be set to run in the same location.
While the AMRs are set to robot mowing, the operator can do the edge and trimming work. The AMRs will return to their starting point upon completing the job. When returning to a job site, the AMRs will recall the plans, the perimeter and keep out areas need to be established only once. The AMRs will simply do the work when deployed a second time and beyond.
Equipped with advanced object detection, the AMR safety system prevents collisions with people, animals and other objects. The machine will slow down and then stop for objects in or near its path and resume automatically when the object is cleared. Alternatively, the AMR can plan around an obstacle upon operator confirmation.
Forbes magazine identified the RC Mowers Autonomous Mowing Robot in their ‘Top 3 Business Tech – Small business’ strategy to address longstanding labour challenges in the landscaping Industry.
Companies that transition to autonomy will have a significant competitive advantage. The services they offer will become more profitable and they will have the ability to grow without the restrictions of finding employees. They will attract better talent by being able to provide better wages and superior, easy-to-use machines; they will greatly reduce their need for unskilled workers. Skilled employees and fewer people to manage simply make businesses easier to run.
The RC Mowers Autonomous Mowing Robot boasts a 60” (1524mm) cut, is powered by the reliable Kawasaki FX730V, 23.5HP 726cc engine. It has an 18 litre fuel tank and can mow up to 2.2 acres per hour.
Run via a smart phone app, operators can view real time stats and control mowing speed, set stripping direction and overlap width, pause and resume each mower individually or as a group.
Colbrook Industries is proud to be releasing the RC Mowers Autonomous Mowing Robot in Australia later in the year. With the success of the RC Mowers flagship, Remote Controlled Slope Mower, the team highly anticipate exciting changes about to come for the landscape industry in Australia.
To register your interest and to get all the latest information on the Autonomous Mowing Robot in Australia, log on to www.colbrookindustries.com.au and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.