A.D.

PATEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

AN UDP PROJECT REPORT ON

AUTONOMOUS LAWN MOWER

BE SEMESTER - 7
(MECHANICAL ENGINEERING)

PROF. SANKALP SONI PROF. KALPESH SHAH

( Internal Guide ) ( Internal Guide )

DR. VISHAL N. SINGH

Head Of Department

Sr. Name of student Enrollment No.

No.
1. Pradeep Jora 160010119027
2. Sandip Rohit 160010119096

3. Shaishav Mistry 160010119106

GUJARAT TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Chandkheda, Ahmedabad

Affiliated

ACADEMIC YEAR(2019-20)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First we would like to offer our special thanks to our guide, Mr. Sankalp Soni for
the help and guidance given throughout the preparation and conduction of this
project and also Mr. Kalpesh Shah for the same.

We would like to thank our teachers in the dept. Of Mechanical Engineering, ADIT
for their support and guidance given for the completetion of the project.

We would like to thank our families who has always support us over the years.
Their encouragement and love were really important for us in completing this
project successfully.

Last but not least, we would express my appreciation to all our friends who
supported us whether direct or in directly on this project. Their help was so
meaningful and supportive.
Index

Title

1. Acknowledgement

2. GTU PMMS Portal Completion Certificate

3. User Defined Project Certificate

4. Undertaking About Originality of Work

5. Plagiarism Certificate

6. Table of Contents

7. Appendix
 GUJARAT TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
Chandkheda, Ahmedabad

This is to certify that a Project-I entitled “STUDY, ANALYSIS AND

DEVELOPMENT OF AUTONOMOUS LAWN MOWER” submitted Pradeep
Vinodbhai Jora(160010119027), Sandip Dilipbhai Rohit(160010119096),
Shaishav Kalpesh Mistry(1600101190106),towards the partial fulfillment of the
degree of Bachelor of Engineering of ADIT Engineering College is the work carried
out by us under ourguidance andsupervision of Dr. V.N.Singh, Mr. Sankalp Soni.
The work submitted, in our opinion, has reached to a level required for being
accepted for the examination.

Date of the submission: 14th Oct. 2019

Dr. V.N.Singh Dr. Mitesh Shah

(Head of the Department)

Mr. Sankalp Soni

(Faculty Guide)
 UNDERTAKING ABOUT ORIGINALITY OF WORK
We hereby certify that we are the sole authors of this UDP project report and that neither any part
of this UDP project report nor the whole of the UDP Project report has been submitted for a
degree by other student(s) to any other University or Institution.
We certify that, to the best of our knowledge, the current UDP Project report does not infringe
upon anyone’s copyright nor violate any proprietary rights and that any ideas, techniques,
quotations or any other material from the work of other people included in our UDP Project
report, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard
referencing practices. Furthermore, to the extent that we have included copyrighted material that
surpasses the boundary of fair dealing within the meaning of the Indian Copyright (Amendment)
Act 2012, we certify that we have obtained a written permission from the copyright owner(s) to
include such material(s) in the current UDP Project report and have included copies of such
copyright clearances to our appendix.
We have checked the write up of the present UDP Project report using anti-plagiarism database
and it is in the allowable limit. In case of any complaints pertaining to plagiarism, we certify that
we shall be solely responsible for the same and we understand that as per norms, University can
even revoke BE degree conferred upon the student(s) submitting this UDP Project report, in case
it is found to be plagiarized.

Team:
Sr. Name of Student Enrollment Signature
No. Number

1. Pradeep Jora 160010119027

2. Sandip Rohit 160010119096

3. Shaishav Mistry 1600101190106

Place: Anand Date: 14th Oct. 2019

Dr. V.N.Singh Mr. Sankalp Soni

 Table of Contents

CHAPTER TITLE

Acknowledgement
Abstract
Index
List of Tables
List of Figures

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background
1.2 Problem Statement
1.3 Objective of Project
1.4 Expectation from the Device
1.5 Outline of Project
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Background Research
2.3 Existing Technology
2.4 Disadvantages of existing technology
2.5 Motor and Battery Selection
2.6 Components
2.6.1 DC Motor
2.6.2 Ultrasonic Sensor
2.6.3 Arduino UNO
2.6.4 Cutter
2.6.5 Battery
2.6.6 Wheels
2.7 Path Planning
2.7.1 Path Recording
2.7.2 Offline Programming
2.7.3 Joint Trajectory Programming
2.8 Computer Aided Software
2.8.2 Arduino 1.0.5 IDE
2.9 Different Designs
2.10 Working of Device
3 Methodology
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Hardware Implementatation
3.2.1 DC Motor
3.2.2 Motor Controller
3.2.3 Sensor
3.2.4 Battery
3.2.5 Wheels
3.3 Summary
4 Conclusion and Recommendations
4.1 Conclusion
ABSTRACT

An automatic lawn mower is a device or robot that help human to cut grass
automatically. Due to rapid development, many robots have turn into an
autonomous robot. In this project, an automatic lawn mower is developed with
several features such as detection of lifting, rain falls, day and night. The movement
or the path of the automatic lawn mower is based on a path planning technique.
Sensors are used to provide feedback from outside world. For this lawn mower,
Arduino UNO microcontroller is utilized as the microcontroller. Every action of the
lawn mower is monitored by the microcontroller with the help of the sensor.
Furthermore, CATIA as CAD software was used to design the structure of the lawn
mower.
 Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background
A lawn mower is a machine that uses one or more revolving blades to cut a lawn to
an even height. The blades may be powered either by hand; pushing the mower
forward to operate the mechanical blade(s), or may have an electric motor or an
internal combustion engine to spin their blades. There are several types of mowers,
each suited to a particular scale and purpose. The smallest types are pushed by a
human user and are suitable for small residential lawns and gardens. Riding
mowers are larger than push mowers and are suitable for large lawns. The largest
multi-gang mowers are mounted to tractors and are designed for large expanses of
grass such as golf courses and municipal parks. But with 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. In 2012, the growth of robotic lawn mower
sales was 15 times that of the traditional styles. It is predicted that if this growth
continues at this rate, automatic lawn mowers may even surpass the sales of
traditional lawn mowers in some places.

Automatic lawn mower is a machine that cut grass automatically. It can be stated
as a machine or robot that helps people to do cutting grass work. The automatic
lawn mower will do the cutting grass task with a preset setting by the user. Unlike
other robotic lawn mowers on the market, this design requires no perimeter wires
to maintain the robot within the lawn. Through an array of sensors, this robot will
not only stay on the lawn, it will avoid and detect objects and humans.
The concept of lawn mower started during the 19th century whereby the design of
grass cutter pulls by an animal such as cow or buffalo. This animal will pull the
grass cutter and the grass cutter will does its work cutting the grass along the way
the animal walk. Due to animal cannot work for a very long period, human start to
reduce the usage of animal and building a machine. So various types of lawn
mower have been built over the course of time. Mostly theses have been manually
operated but corresponding to the advancing of technology, latest lawn mowers
work automatically. Sensor such as rain sensor, light sensor, ultrasonic sensor and
infrared sensor has widely been used nowadays to enable the lawn mower to be
more intelligent and work efficiently.
Automated lawn mowers have been made available to the general public for over
30 years but its widespread or public use on the other hand has been limited mainly
Due to the current costs of such devices. Existing technology sell at around £899
(INR 70000) or more (Lawn Mower Reviews, 2011) and considering the fact that
the manual versions of these devices, the standard lawn mowers, sell at around £86
(INR 5000) (Lawn Mower Reviews, 2011). Although the cost of labor would need
to be added to that of the equipment, the latter is still a current viable and
affordable option for most consumers will benefit from.
The reason for robotic lawn mowers are an interesting area of research and work
because there are numerous real-world benefits of having a machine that
autonomously cuts grass, these include:

• Aid elderly users or those with disabilities who are unable to fulfill this task
themselves.

• For users with a busy schedule and rarely find time to mow, etc.
 • Working range is increased due to absence of main supply wires.

• It reduces human effort.

It is a device that can fit into just about everyone's lifestyle, therefore having a
device that costs less, whilst accomplishing the same task as the higher end models
is a great advantage in order to compete with the current market.

1.2 Problem Statement

How can we develop an economic and friendly user automatic lawn mower?

1.3 Objective of Project

1. To build an economic automatic lawn mower.

2. To produce a user friendly automatic lawn mower.

3. To conduct and analyze the automatic lawn mower.

1.4 Expectations from the device

There are many desirable properties in this device some of which are listed as –
Should be capable of cutting the grass properly: The device should be able
to cut the grass properly as it the primary requirement of the machine. The grass
should be cut uniformly and cuts should be clean.
Should operate automatically: As the name suggests, the device should be
able to operate automatically. It shall use the sensors and microcontroller to
formulate its path and its required work.

Should be lightweight: It should be light in weight due to energy consumption

issues. Lighter is the device, lesser will be the energy required to run it and hence
more will be its efficiency.


Should work effectively in sensing the obstacles: As the device is required to

run without a human operator, it must be capable of sensing and avoiding the
obstacles in its path.

1.5 Outline of Project

This report consists of six chapters. The first chapter introduces the project. The
background of the project is discussed. Besides that, it contains the objective and
scope of the project. Problem statement and outline of the project also mentioned
in this chapter.

Chapter Two, discusses the literature review and the related works. Some
components like sensors, micro controller etc is discussed in this chapter.

Methodology will be discussed in the Chapter Three. In this chapter, it will discuss
about the method on hardware implementation of this project. It will show how a
lawn mower will be fabricated out and also how to design the circuit connection of
the component used.
Chapter Four discusses on the result of this project. It will show the performance of
the lawn mower. Several data collection from analyzing the performance was
located in this chapter.

Chapter Five discusses on the project management. In this section, the time line of
the project flow and the budget that needed for this project was listed out.

Last but not least, recommendation and conclusion is presented in the last chapter.
In this chapter several recommendation were pointed out in order for further
development of this project.
 Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

This chapter studies various fields that are used for development of an automatic
lawn mower. Components such as power motor, ultrasonic sensor, battery used in
this project are discussed. These include software such as CATIA and Arduino
1.0.5 IDE which are used for design and programming. Several techniques for
robot routing are also presented in this chapter.

2.2 Background Research

1. Design and Implementation of Autonomous Lawn Mower Robot Controller

This paper basically focuses on designing an automated lawn mower controller
which can use to mower the grass at lawns and playground. It used the concept of
„sense-act‟ whereby it does not fully depend on the workspace surrounding. The
automated lawn mower has the feature of detecting the grass. Besides that it has
GPS system which allocated the path for the robot movement. Other than that,
some sensor such as sonar sensor which use to detect obstacles, encoder to
calculate the distance the lawn mower travel together with the GPS system.

2. Design and Implementation of a Control Algorithm for an autonomous lawn

mower
This paper discuss on the way of implementing GPS system for automated lawn
mower path flow. Besides that it also stated there they used PID controller to
increase the performance of the motor speed which can provide better flow.
Besides that, their project also included encoder to calculate distance but their
encode was made by magnetic and hall sensor which placed around the wheel and
it calculate the number of magnetic field strength while moving which will convert
the number of magnet to distance travelled. The lawn mower performance is being
watch throughout the whole working process at the base station using wireless
transmission.
3. Modified Lawn Mower Search Pattern for Areas Comprised of Weighted
Regions
This paper discuses on the way the lawn mower move while it work. It used
weightage spot or region to determine the correct way of path. With this technique,
the lawn mower can find the most important place to cut the grass depending on
the amount of weight comprised in order to cover the maximum area and also to
minimize the time usage. The region with the most weight will be allocated first
followed by the second weight and so on. This is some sort of guided path system
whereby it move according to the weight given. With this technique, is able to
achieve a good result on area coverage.
4. Design and Modeling a Prototype of a Robotic Lawn Mower
This paper discuss on how to develop a robotic lawn mower with several functions.
It objective is to build a lawn mower that do not go out of workspace, do not leave
any uncut area, able to avoid collision and the most important that is the robot must
be cheap and affordable to everyone. Basically it used PIC microcontroller to
perform the lawn mower working process or to run the lawn mower.
5. Survey of Robotic Lawn Mowers
This paper discusses different types of Robotic Lawn Mowers present in the market
at present. It discusses different companies and their products and compares them
with others.

2.3 Existing Technology

Some of the existing manufacturers of Robotic Lawn Mowers are:

• Friendly Robotics (USA)
• Husqvarna (Sweden)
• SN Eno (France)
• Technical Solutions (USA)
• Weed Eater (USA)
 Fig 2.1: Robomow Lawn Mower

Existing automated lawn mowers each have a distinct working principle, for
instance the Robomow from Friendly Robotics requires the user to perform a
onetime 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. Special sensors inside Robomow enable 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.
 Fig 2.2: Criss-Cross Cutting pattern of Robomow (Friendly Robotics)

Other technologies work around a similar principal as the Robomow, in the sense
that it requires a perimeter wire to limit its cutting area. A difference between them
may be added features and the cutting pattern, for instance the LawnBott of the
Husqvarna have a random operating principle in the sense that they do not follow
any specific cutting pattern.
 Fig 2.3: Random Cutting pattern of LawnBott (Husqvarna)

Another type of cutting pattern involves matrix cutting. The lawn-mower search
pattern, one of the most widely used search patterns because of its simplicity and
guarantee of path continuity and smoothness. The pattern consists of two major
movements:
(1) Straight path
(2) Semicircle path.
The pitch refers to the spacing between two consecutive straight paths.
The two movements of the lawn-mower search have different purposes. While the
objective of straight path is to search/explore the area, the semicircle path is to
connect straight paths. Therefore, the overall path is planned such that
• Straight paths reduce as much uncertainty as possible
• Semicircle paths satisfy the turning constraint of the vehicle.

Fig 2.4: Pattern with straight path and semi circular curves

2.4 Disadvantages of Existing Technology

The operation method of the Robomow although effective, is to a certain degree

inefficient and contributes to a quite costly end product. The main advantages of
their design include, virtually any size or shape of garden can be specified, it is
flexible and it can work without requiring the user intervention at any stage, can
operate at surface areas with slopes, these points can also constitute a disadvantage.
The system design has the following disadvantageous aspects:

• The size and shape of the garden – as wires have to be placed in the garden
area to be covered by the robot; the cost of the entire system may be
considerably higher depending on the size. In the case of many plants being in
the middle of the garden area, the setup can become cumbersome.
 • Damage or faults – the wires are set on the grass and although the company
mentions the fact that they would typically be covered by grass and become
unnoticeable in a matter of 2 to 3 weeks and the wires are prone to damage.
The damage can be from any origin for example, pets can dig up and damage
the wire, over time due to weather it can wear off, amongst others. A fault on
the wire can provide incorrect information to the device and as consequence
the device will not work as expected.

2.5 Motor and Battery Selection

The selection of motor and battery are most important factors on the performance
and working of any robot as the motors are directly responsible for the movement
of the robot while the batteries are responsible for providing the energy required to
do every function. The most reliable solution for the selection these days is to the
use online calculators for determining the right battery and motor for the robot.
These calculators are very carefully managed and programmed and are very
reliable, being used by so many webs and people across the globe.
 Fig 2.5: Motor Calculator

Fig 2.6: Battery Calculator

2.6 Components
2.6.1 DC Motor
DC motor is a device that converts electrical form into mechanical form of energy.
There are many kind of DC motor such as DC motor, separately excited DC motor
and self-excited DC motor. DC motor was powered by DC current. There are
various voltage input for DC motor and the common voltage input for DC motor
are 3V, 5V, 12V, and 24V. There are advantages for DC motor which are the DC
motor perform better than AC motor, and DC motor provide excellent of
controlling the speed.
 Fig 2.7: DC Motor
2.6.2 Ultrasonic Sensor
Ultrasonic sensor is a sensor that uses ultrasonic sound to detect range or distance
of an object. This sensor can also act as a sensor to detect present or absent of an
object. Due to ultrasonic is in the form of sound, a sort of energy, it can be used to
calculate distance whereby the distance of the sound travel from the emitter to an
object and reflect back to the receiver. Sound wave travel at speed of 340m/s.
Figure 2.3 shows the ultrasonic sensor concept used to calculate the distance
 Fig 2.8: Ultrasonic Sensor Concept

Fig 2.9 Ultrasonic Sensor

2.6.3 Arduino UNO
Arduino UNO is a component on the shelf (COTS) circuit board which aims for the
helping people on their project. It is based on ATmega328 microcontroller. Rather
than making own circuit board from scratch, Arduino UNO provides a sufficient
circuit board which able to program and contain most of the necessary pin
function. Arduino UNO board consists of 14 input output pin whereby 6 of them
can be used as PWM output. Besides that it contains also 6 analog to digital (ADC)
pin. Basically, Arduino UNO operates at 5V and the input power source needs to
be a range of 7V to 12V.
Table 2.1 Summary of Arduino UNO microcontroller board

Fig 2.10: Arduino Uno

2.6.4 Cutter
This will be used for the primary function of the mower i.e. to cut the grass.
Depending on the design, more than one cutter can be used in synchronization as
well. Also cutters with different shape or number of blades can be used for the
purpose of getting the required cutting speed.

Fig 2.11: Cutters

2.6.5 Battery
It will provide the energy for the working of the robot. The battery of a two
wheelers will be able to provide enough power to drive the robot for its working or
independent multiple batteries can be used for better performance.

Fig 2.12: Battery

2.6.6 Wheels

These will be required for the cause of the motion of the body of the robot. The
choice of the wheels largely depends on the shape and size of the grass. It will also
depend on the required ground clearance of the robot. As treads of the tires can
contribute significantly to the performance of the mower, great caution is needed
during the decision to choose the particular tires.

Fig 2.13 Wheel

2.7 Path Planning

Path planning is a term whereby describe the motion of a robot which is planed
accordingly. Sometime path planning also defined as motion planning as it main
function is to plan a robot motion. Many robot produce nowadays and this
technique still use by every industry that build robots. Path planning can be say as
the basic motion algorithms that allow the robot to move around at a specific
workspace with predefined path. With predefined path, the robot will not get lost or
go out of their workspace. With the guided path, the robot knows the way they
should go.
There are several approaches that have being used for programming the path
planning of a robot.
1. Path Recording

2. Off-line path programming

3. Joint trajectory programming

Several important notes to be considered when design or program a robot path.

This is to ensure that the robot can be control easily. a)
Continuity of position, velocity and acceleration.

b) Precise control of motion

c) Mid-range motion

2.7.1 Path Recording

Path record is the basic and easy way of programming the robot path. It used the
technique whereby human will operate the robot and the robot simply record any
movement move by the human. It will record the path given and will play back the
path according to the record it hold. This technique was easy as the robot record
every coordinate of the movement and no need any programming skill for the user.
It is very simple but there are some problems whereby it need power the robot to
program and it is difficult to place robot which are big and heavy.

2.7.2 Off-line path programming

Off-line path programming is the technique of computerize programming without
power on any robot. Here the path will be programmed with the guide equation and
all the data will be gain from a specific table plot by the user. The computer will
calculate the path according to the information and the robot to follow it. Behalf of
the computerize programming, this technique does not take into account of the
acceleration of the robot.

2.7.3 Joint trajectory programming

Join trajectory programming is the technique where all the joint of robot were
specified at a time into a computer control. This way the joint movement of a robot
is calculate through computer and faster than Cartesian method. This also does not
require any inverse kinematic calculation. Joint space description can be
programmed off line or teaching method. Through this method, the initial and final
speed and acceleration can be specified and get the accurate results.

2.8 Computer Aided Software

Computer software will be used in this project to modeling and design of a robot.
There is much computer software and each of them has their own function. Human
used computer software to ease their design. With computer software, one can
perform their task efficiently and fast. Below is the example of computer software:
a. CATIA

b. Arduino 1.0.5 IDE

2.9 Different designs

There are various designs of the Automatic Lawn Mower possible depending of
different factors. These factors include source of energy, mode of control, number
of grass cutters, type of sensors etc. These are discussed in brief as –
• Type of energy source: There can be two different designs depending upon
the source of power used. First is using conventional battery. A rechargeable
battery will provide power to drive the motors for the motion of the mower
i.e. motion of the wheels and the motion of the grass cutter. Second choice is
to use power of solar energy to drive the mower. For this a solar panel will
be required and setup to convert that energy gathered to be converted into
usable form and magnitude. The choice of the mode of energy will be
affected by the factors like difficulties in producing required power by using
solar panel, added weight of solar panel, difficulties of integrating solar
panel into the circuit and cost factors.

• Mode of control: Depending upon this, again two different designs can be
made. First is use of sensors to control the motion of the mower. Mower will
make use of sensors like Proximity Sensor, Ultrasonic Sensor etc to detect
the presence of the physical obstacles and with help of micro controller, path
of the mower can be determined. The second option is to use a remote
control to drive and control the mower remotely. This can be achieved by
integrating the R/C into the electronic circuit of the mower. The choice of
The mode of control will be affected by the factors like difficulty of
integrating R/C into the electronic circuit, the range of the radio control and
the cost factors.

• Number of cutters: The number of the cutters to be used can also result into
different type of designs of the mower. The use of multiple cutters can be
there. It can result in increase of the cutting speed or amount of grass cut in
given time but it has limitations like increased cost factor, increase in energy
 demands, and increase in the physical dimensions of the mower to
accommodate the extra number of cutters.

• Type of sensors used: The designs dependent on this factor will result into
Contact type mower and Non Contact type mower. In Contact type
mower, there will be micro switches used that will come into physical
contact with the external obstacle and then change the path of the mower
accordingly. While in Non Contact type mower, sensors like Ultrasonic or
Proximity sensors will be used to detect the presence and distance of the
obstacle and determine the path of the mower accordingly with help of the
microcontroller.

These are some of the different type of designs which can be implemented
while deciding upon the final design of the mower. This depends upon the
factors like energy/power requirements, ease or difficulty of integrating a
component into the electronic circuit, weight and physical aspect of the mower,
cost factors etc.
2.10 Working of the device

In general, a robot lawn mower can operate in three distinct modes: remote control,
teach control and automatic operation. For remote control operation, the human
commands must be executed in the mobile lawn mower. Also, sensory information
such as motor speed, blade status, tactile information and an image of the local
environment can be transmitted to the operator to provide a "telepresence" in
which the operator senses enough information about the environment to perform
the proper action. The general telepresence concept is still being researched and
more information is needed in some situations. In teach mode, the storage capacity
of the microcomputer is used to store command and encoder information so that
repetitive operations can be performed. In some operations, the use of a given
home position for calibration may provide enough accuracy for simple repetitive
operations. In the general case, an absolute global positioning system such as the
target update method for navigation is required to provide accurate teach
programming or automatic operation. With this capability, full region filling
algorithms may be implemented for lawn mowing.
The working of the device is all dependent on the electronic circuitry that is to be
designed.

1. Capturing the environment data: It involves the collection of data

regarding the obstacles present in the course of the cutting of grass,
obstacles present in the path of the device. It is to be done with the help
of various sensors that are to b used in the device.

2. Processing the data: It involves processing the data collected by the

sensors with help of a central unit. The central unit to be used in this
device is a micro-controller.

3. Actions: It involves the actions the micro-controller will take after

processing the data acquired. It will be based on the programming done
into the micro-controller and the pre fed instructions. The actions involve
mainly the motion control of the device.

The working of the device also depends on 4 main mechanisms. The main
mechanisms to be used are –
Collision Detection Mechanism: This is to deal with the obstacles present in
the path of device. This is to be achieved with the help of sensors or micros
witches. The difference between the two is that whereas in case of collision
detection sensor, there will be no physical contact with the obstacle, it will not be
the same if micro switches are to be used. In case of micro switches, there will be
collision with the obstacles and then the device will turn away from it.

Grass Cutting Mechanism: As this is basically a lawn mower, so this is the

important part of the device. This mechanism is to be used to cut the grass, which
is the primary function of the lawn mower. It is to be achieved with help of a grass
cutter and a motor to run this cutter. The number of cutters can be more than one
depending on the design of the mower. Also the motion of the cutter can be
controlled with help of timer as to when to switch it off.
AEIOU Summary
Empathy Canvas
Ideation Canvas
Product Development Canvas
 Chapter 3
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction

This chapter discusses the method use to design an automatic lawn mower. There
several steps taken to complete the task. Before starting to build a robot, many
initial steps have taken such as research on automatic lawn mower which is
discuses in Chapter 2.
 Fig 3.1: Research Methodology Flow

This chapter will be separated into two sections:

• Hardware Implementation
• Software Implementation
Hardware part includes the sensors, motors, wheels that are used in the project
while the software part includes the modeling in CATIA and the programming in
Arduino environment.

3.2 Hardware Implementation

In this section, the hardware selection will be discussed. The hardware that will be
included in this project is DC motor, ultrasonic sensor, battery, wheels, chassis etc.
3.2.1 DC motor
Figure 3.3 shows the motor that will be used in constructing automated lawn
mower. It can operate at a range of 12V to 24V. It has higher torque which made it
easier. DC motor is a device that converts electrical form into mechanical form of
energy. There are many kind of DC motor such as DC motor, separately excited
DC motor and self-excited DC motor. DC motor will be powered by DC current.

Fig 3.3: DC Motor

Specs

Type : DC Gear Motor

Voltage: 12 V
Current: 300mA (max)
Wattage: 3.6 W
RPM: 200 for wheels
1000 for cutter

3.2.2 Motor Controller

This motor controller has the ability to control the direction of the motor. The
component used to build this controller are 5V relay, transistor 9013, power
transistor and 10 k Ω resistor. Figure 3.5 shows the motor controller circuit
diagram which function to control the motor direction of motor and also the PWM
of the motor. The input signal for this system is u1, u2, u3 and u4 which use to
control motor direction. Whereas the bottom of the circuit is the PWM input signal
which use to control the motor speed. For clockwise rotation, the input pin u1 and
u4 will be set to high and the u2 and u3 pin set as low. On the other hand. For
anticlockwise direction, pin u2 and u3 will set as to high and pin u1 and u4 will set
as low. Setting high to the transistor will activate the transistor whereas setting low
will deactivate the transistor.
 Fig 3.4: Motor controller circuit diagram

Figure 3.5: Block diagram of Arduino with motor controller

Figure 3.5 shows the connection between Arduino UNO pin with motor controller
pin. The ground of Arduino and motor controller are common ground. The pin
from the Arduino will send signal to the controller.
Specs
Type: L293D Motor Drive IC
Voltage: 5V DC Arduino
support
3.2.3 Sensor
Ultrasonic sensor is a sensor that uses ultrasonic sound to detect range or distance
of an object. This sensor can also act as a sensor to detect present or absent of an
object. Due to ultrasonic is in the form of sound, a sort of energy, it can be used to
calculate distance whereby the distance of the sound travel from the emitter to an
object and reflect back to the receiver. In this project, the ultrasonic sensor will be
used to detect obstacle which will prevent the lawn mower to knock any obstacle.
Figure 3.8 show the sensor that will be used. Figure 3.9 shows the connection
between an ultrasonic sensor and Arduino UNO microcontroller.

Fig 3.6: Ultrasonic Sensor

 Fig 3.7: Block diagram of Ultrasonic sensor with Arduino UNO

Specs
Name: HC-SR04 Ultrasonic sensor
Voltage: 5V
Range: 2cm-200 cm
Precision: 5mm

3.2.4 Battery
It will provide the energy for the working of the robot. The battery of a two
wheelers will be able to provide enough power to drive the robot for its working or
independent multiple batteries can be used for better performance. Two 6V
batteries were attached in series to provide the required 12V.
 Fig 3.8 Battery

Specs

Use: Powering the components

Nos: 2

Type: Li- Ion Rechargeable

Voltage: 6V DC, Total 12V

3.2.5 Wheels

These will be required for the cause of the motion of the body of the robot. The
choice of the wheels largely depends on the shape and size of the grass. As treads
of the tires can contribute significantly to the performance of the mower, great
caution is needed during the decision to choose the particular tires.
 Fig 3.9 Wheel
Specs
Use: Movement of Robot
Nos: 4
Diameter : 10 cm
Width : 4 cm
Shaft Hole: 6mm

3.4 Summary
This chapter discussed the method used to design an automatic lawn mower.
Hardware such as DC motor, buzzer, LCD module, IR sensor, ultrasonic sensor,
rain sensor and light sensor were used in this project. The circuit connection of
each component was discussed. The algorithm for the main program and sensors
were discussed using flow chart.
 Chapter 4
CONCLUSION
4.1 Conclusion
An automatic lawn mower with several features has been proposed. Several related
works has been studied in order to gain idea on how to build an automatic lawn
mower. Most research is on the robot path planning using variety technique. All the
technique used are mainly aim for the shortest path, consume less energy.
Besides that, 2D and 3D model have been designed according to the specification
required such as circuit placement and sensor placement. The structure was user
friendly and economic which were achieving the objective.
References

• www.sciencedirect.com

• www.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org

• www.patent.google.in

• www.iop.org
 APPENDIX

Sr No. Title

1 Periodic Progress Report

2 Patent Search & Analysis Report