Irssa M.

Jimena
Rona Rizza M. Molea

IMPLEMENTING GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM FOR CUTTING

GRASS USING AUTONOMOUS LAWN MOWER

INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Mowing the lawn is often considered the most detested of all household chores
although some people look forward to the hours of sweaty labor, many individuals
view this task as tedious and heavy and do not anticipate repeating the process after
only a few days (Ragonese et. al., 2015). Furthermore, the methods of lawn mowing
that are currently used are not sustainable because they have adverse effects on
humans and the environment. Conventional gas powered lawn mowers are noisy,
dangerous, and drastically inefficient. Mowing your lawn with the standard motor
powered lawn mower is inconvenience. For elderly, young people and persons with
disability cutting grass is cannot accomplished easily. Motor powered lawn mower
produced noise pollution due to its loud engine; also it requires maintenance such as
changing oil. Along with motor powered mower are the electric lawn mowers, though
these electric lawn mowers are environmental friendly, they can be inconvenience too.
Likewise, if this electric lawn mower is corded, mowing could prove to be
problematic and dangerous.
Basically a lawn mower is a type of grass cutter design to trim and maintain
overgrown lawn grass. This mower can be in different style of operations, it could be
done manually or automatic. Also they differ on the type of material used for cutting;
the rotational blade and the nylon strips. The advantages of using nylon strips is can

trim the portion of the lawn such as grass near the big tree, and grass grown beside the
rock or lawn edges and leaving the lawn fully trimmed. Unfortunately this nylon
strips gets dull, break easily and should be replaced. The output was untidy since
trimmed grass are thrown anywhere and also the strong impact of this nylon strips to a
stone or other object may cause injury to the user and people nearby (Shukitis, n.d).
While rotational blade has fine output, smooth cutting, it enable the neatness of
landscape particularly in sports field and some other places that has lawn area.
Disadvantage of using this blade is not like the nylon strips, it leaves the grass grown
near the big tree and grass near the rock untrimmed since the blade may be damaged
if this part reaches the rotational blade.
With the advancement in technology and things being converted to mobile and
automatic these days, transition from traditional hand-guided or ride-on mowers to
automatic electric mowers is beginning to take place. The simple lawnmower turns
into modern applications such as autonomous system which is used nowadays. The
advancement of technology has changed the usual way of implementing task in terms
of lawn maintenance. The usual machine evolves into robots and was designed to
execute lawn mowing without human intervention. Some other manufacturers
designed their machines to be more efficient, reliable, and robust suitable for several
lawn area.
The commercially automated lawn mower available nowadays is equipped
with a perimeter wire which serves as the limiting boundary of an area. This
automated lawn mower is guided by a sensor while an algorithm controls the lawn
mower to cover the entire lawn surface. Once the mower reaches the perimeter of the
yard, it rotates and proceeds in a straight path until it encounters a boundary location
once more at which point the process repeat itself. Boundary wires are widely used to

ensure suppression in available products. However they require users to add

infrastructure to the environment which increase set up time and decreases portability.
One of this automated lawn mower that uses perimeter wire is the Robomow. This
Robomow requires the user to perform a one-time set up where the garden perimeter
is set. The perimeter is set using a battery powered wire that is laid around the outer
edges of the garden and any area where the robot is not to cover. A special sensor
inside Robomow enables the wires to be recognized and the robot is therefore kept
within the designated area. The robot travels on the garden in a systematic criss-cross
pattern several times from side to side to ensure that the entire area is covered and that
the grass is cut from different angles (Friendly Robotics, 2011). Other technologies
work around a similar principal as the Robomow, in the sense that it requires a
perimeter wire to limit its cutting area, the difference between them may be added
features and the cutting pattern.
Robotic lawn mowers may damage the lawn near a perimeter wire or border
because they follow a path along or adjacent the boundary while mowing. Repeatedly
following the same path along the boundary can cause damage and ruts due to wear
from the robotic mower's wheels contacting the lawn in the same place. Robotic
mower navigation systems direct the travel of robotic mowers within yards or to
specific locations or portions of yards by measuring distances traveled from known
references following boundary wires. However, wheel slippage caused by traction lost
on wet grass, loose dirt, side hill compensation to drive in a straight line, or other
reasons may result in significant distance measurement errors over typical boundary
wires. As a result, robotic mower navigation systems lack high accuracy to navigate to
specific locations or portions of yards within boundary wires, and also lack high
precision to reliably and repeatedly navigate to such locations or areas.

The researchers found out that gasoline operated grass cutters are mostly used
in the Philippines. The usual way of grass cutting takes higher cost, time and effort on
the part of the user in spite of the fact that the risks of accidents that may happen.
Furthermore the uses of this device increase emission of gas elements contributing air
pollutions that could damage our environment. Thus innovating the usual process it
will decrease the users effort, help to preserve environment and able to do multitasking.

Research Problem
This study aims to lessen the time and effort in cutting the grass by
implementing Global Positioning System (GPS) using Autonomous Lawn Mower.
Specifically, it sought to answer the following questions:
1. What is the fastest time in cutting the grass using cutting pattern and
coordinates per specified area?
2. What is the error rate for cutting the grass in a specified area?
3. What is the accuracy for cutting the grass within a given coordinates?

Research Objectives

The main objective of this study is to lessen the time and effort in cutting the
grass by implementing Global Positioning System (GPS) using Autonomous Lawn
Mower.
This study aims to achieve the following objectives.
1. Determine the fastest time in cutting grass using cutting pattern and
coordinates per specified area.
2. Determine the error rate in cutting grass in a specified area.
3. Determine the accuracy in cutting the grass in a given coordinates.
Significance of the Study
This research aimed to lessen the time and effort in cutting the grass by
implementing Global Positioning System (GPS) using Autonomous Lawn Mower and
this will benefit the following:
1. Users of Lawn Mower. It will ease the user from the physically demanding
and time consuming task of mowing.
2. Environment. It will help decrease the emission of gas elements that causes
air pollution.
3. Future Researchers and Developers. It will serve as a research/reference
material for future study.

Scope and Limitations

The scope of the study is to lessen the time and effort in cutting the grass using
Automated Lawn Mower. The researchers will use the Global Positioning System
(GPS) for navigation of the automated lawn mower. Different sensors will be used as
the eye of the lawn mower. The lawn shape must be in quadrilateral and the battery is
manually charged. The design of the autonomous lawn mower will be capable of
cutting small scale lawn grasses in residential lawn and commercial building.

In addition, during grass cutting there are some areas of the workplace that
cannot be reached by the blade especially grasses that are grown besides the rocks,
trees, and center islands living it untrimmed. Technically, the type of ground texture
should be compressed, plain, and free from stones or small objects. Furthermore, the
project is designed to be autonomous during its operation and it is recommended that
the site should be dry. It cannot be used during rainy days since the majority of the
parts of the project are sensitive to any unwanted conductors.