RoboCut: DIY Lawnbot
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 16 of September , 2008 at 4:47 am
Since iRobot hasn’t gotten around to releasing an autonomous robotic lawnmower yet, if you’re tired of crawling around the yard cutting grass with a pair of safety scissors (that’s the way to do it, right?) you might try your hand at building your very own autonomous mowing robot. The Swedes are making it easy for you with a complete lawbot kit, where you get pretty much everything you need for about $700 plus shipping. Here are the specs:
RoboCut is a BASIC Stamp powered robot. Two 12 volt motors with gearbox gives the two large drive wheels good traction and the robot can maneuver in very small areas.
Powersource is a NiMh accu-pack at 12V, 4.1 Ah. One motor gives the cutter disk a rpm of approx. 3500 rpm. A Basic STAMP 2 is the brain in the PCB mounted in the front of the Robocut. This PCB has the following features.
-Two-channel (right/left) Buried Wire Fence (BWF) detectors.
-Two-channel (right/left) active IR obstacle detection
-Two channel (right/left) drive motor control on/off, Forward/Rewerse
-One channel cutter-motor control on/off, MOS-FET 20 Amp
-Charging/accuvoltage measuring with high resolution
-Charger detection On/off
-Optional temperature sensor to check accupack temp during charging.
-prototype area
-prepared for optional “self-charging” and navigating to the charging station via an IR beacon
If it seems like some of those specs are a little bit open-ended, that’s the idea. The designers are hoping that you’ll teach your robot to mow better than they ever could. The whole thing is entirely, awesomely hackable, both in terms of software and hardware. Someone should take mod one of those titanium cutter bars and have a go at my weeds…
There’s a rather dull video after the jump where a Swedish guy explains what’s included in the kit.
[ RoboCut ] VIA [ Hacked Gadgets ]
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