Coverage Path Planning and Precise Localization for Autonomous Lawn Mowers

In this paper, we present a concept for automatic path planning and high-precision localization for autonomous lawn mowers. In particular, two objectives contribute to the increased efficiency of the presented approach compared to classical automatic lawn mowing techniques. First, the standard chaotic control of the mower is replaced by an efficient planning strategy for traversing the area without gaps and with as few overlaps as possible. Second, the conventional boundary wires become unnecessary as high-precision localization based on multi-sensor fusion allows for keeping the virtual boundaries. The whole concept is implemented and tested on an industrial-grade lawn mower. The advantages of intelligent path planning over chaotic strategies are shown, and the localization performance is validated using real-world data.