Grande Prairie launching autonomous lawnmower pilot project

Posted in: Projects

Date Posted: 2019-08-28

Organization Name: City of Grande Prairie

The City of Grande Prairie is piloting the use of an autonomous, robotic lawn mower on Diamond 1 at the South Bear Creek Park. The new lawnmower, a Husqvarna Automower 550, is being used as a limited pilot of new technology to evaluate service level standards.

City Maximizing Efficiency with Autonomous Lawnmower Project

The robotic mower is designed for professional fleet to navigate lawns within a pre-defined area and is capable of handling a variety of weather conditions, including rain.

By clipping rather than cutting the lawn on a more frequent basis based on the grass-growth rate and simultaneously fertilizing the lawn, the Husqvarna Automower 550 produces optimal cutting results while maximizing efficiency.

Benefits of the new autonomous lawnmower include significant noise reduction in comparison to traditional mowers, reducing neighbourhood disturbances, and allowing the mower to be run at night; and energy-efficient operation as the machine is electrically powered and consumes a low amount of energy in order to run. It can also be programmed, monitored, and controlled remotely by smartphone.

Meet Grande Prairie’s Automower 550

Built into the Husqvarna Automower 550 are several durable and reliable safety features. The machine’s blade is programmed to automatically stop if lifted and has a wide outer body to provide ample space between the blade and the cover. Additionally, it features remote object detection with built-in sensors to help detect objects so it can lower speed and avoid hard collisions, and re-route itself to avoid collisions. To protect against theft, it features an audible anti-theft alarm, a trackable GPS system, and a unique PIN that must be entered to make the machine operational.

Results will be shared at a future committee meeting.