Photo courtesy of the City of Grande Prairie

By Emily Keller

CITY OF GRANDE PRAIRIE

City of Grande Prairie introduces autonomous lawnmower

Sep 1, 2019 | 7:00 AM

The City of Grande Prairie has begun their new autonomous lawnmower pilot project.

The robotic lawn mower is located at Diamond 1 at South Bear Creek Park.

A Husqvarna Automower 550, it is being used as a limited pilot of new technology to evaluate service level standards.

The mower can handle a variety of weather conditions, including rain, and Transportation and Parks Manager for the City Robert Carroll says the mower has many different settings and the results of the project will help with future developments.

“There are different settings on it. It has a rain sensor on it so that if there is a heavy rain, it’ll return itself to home, which is pretty cool to watch. I can even send it home on the app on the iPad and you can watch it return to its charging base, so those are things that we are still trying to evaluate and just see. Obviously, it’s better to cut grass when it’s dry rather than in the rain, so my assumption is that we will curtail operations when it’s pouring down rain. So those are things that we’re going to work out with the pilot and see what role these types of machines are going to play in the future of our turf maintenance program.”

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Photo courtesy of Robert Carroll

The mower is also equipped with several different anti-theft guards, such as a unique PIN that must be entered from a phone application for the machine to turn on. It can also be programmed, monitored, and controlled remotely by smartphone.

It also emits a siren when it is picked up that will increasingly get louder, as well as a trackable GPS system.

The city says the new mower comes with several benefits, including significant noise reduction and energy-efficient operation as the machine is electrically powered.

More information on the new autonomous lawn mower can be found here.