OpenMower: Let's upgrade cheap off-the-shelf robotic mowers to modern, smart RTK GPS based lawn mowing robots!
(github.com)
from Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world on 24 Aug 10:16
https://programming.dev/post/36233412
from Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world on 24 Aug 10:16
https://programming.dev/post/36233412
cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/36230046
Let’s be honest: The current generation of robotic lawn mowers sucks. Basically all of these bots drive in a random direction until they hit the border of the lawn, rotate for a randomized duration and repeat. I think we can do better!
Therefore, we have disassembled the cheapest off-the-shelf robotic mower we could find (YardForce Classic 500) and were surprised that the hardware itself is actually quite decent:
- Geared sensored brushless motors for the wheels
- A sensored brushless motor for the mower motor itself
- The whole construction seems robust, waterproof and all in all thought through
- All components are connected using standard connectors, therefore upgrading the hardware is easily possible.
The bottom line is: The bot itself is surprisingly high quality and doesn’t need to be changed at all. We just need some better software in there.
threaded - newest
I need this but for Roombas.
The world has needed it for printers for decades.
OMG, yes please 🙏
Check out Valetudo.
It’s so ironic that valetudo doesn’t support roomba considering roombas used to be a hackable robotics platform, even selling the robots without the vacuum components, with many models of vacuums shipping with serial ports right on top.
Been using valetudo for years. Love it.
Hasn’t this problem long been solved in roomba’s? Mine is about 8 years old and it doesn’t go around randomly. I assumed all new models don’t do that anymore, except for some very cheap off brand vacuum robots.
I mean the open firmware. And mine is older.
Yes that would be nice to have. Sadly when I bought my Roomba I didn’t care too much about that. My next one will be hackable though.
You can’t compare indoors and outdoors directly. I think random has its means in an uneven environment. It simply doesn’t matter if the odometry sucks, if the wheels stick in muddy earth or small sticks block on side.
Advanced sensors such as GPS and cam isn’t very precise outdoors. That’s why newer models come with its own positioning sender.
I was mostly talking about roombas/indoor. For outdoors you have GPS with RTK which most mowers use that work without a boundary wire, afaik.
I have a similar idea for one day when we can actually use the government for good again. We should build a low bandwidth nationwide digital radio network. Not owned by corporations but by the people. Include things like rtk capability by default. The telecomms and isps will try to fight this with billions of inflation dollars, but if we do manage to get this in, everyone could have access to the internet at low speeds without paying, and it would be relativly easy to maintain. An open standard that would allow many cool technologies like robotics that are much safer and precise.
Potential aplications are, nonsibscription medical devices, realtime rtk everywhere, a huge boon for construction with a standard coordinate system. Documenting things like underground cables and pipes easily. Property lines. Self driving cars that can communicate with each other and work together. Access to the internet and communications for the poor. Cheap animal tracking collars. Drones that can fly across the country without needing a data plan. So many things. It would be an efficency gain accross the entire economy.
Who's going to pay for my extra electricity costs to run my antenna and amplifier that supports this radio network? Who's going to pay for my maintenance and upkeep costs?
This probably wouldn’t be something that you as a person is running the HW for, so you have no direct expense to HW or maintenance. This would likely be government driven and paid through taxes. Its basically just NPR, but with low bandwidth internet instead.
For readers in the future, NPR was a show from back when we had public radio…
No…NPR is National Public Radio, it’s the broadcasting organization, not a show.
Unless you are running a mesh node or joining the global supercompute cluster, you wouldnt need to run any hardware. I more mean like a network of towers run by the state using sub 1000 MGHz freqiencies or soemthing, to get good range, maybe even lower frequencies. You could maybe get like 50+ mile range with small devices at low power if you had the right spectrum. Perhaps a fallback mode of several hundred miles for low speed mode.
Look at meshtastic, it’s only text messages but the underlying system could be iterated on.
reticulum.network I was looking at this the other day. It looks like there is potential to support more than just a message layer.
Ooo
kindly please go away with your internet connected medical devices. thank you.
I just bought a Mammotion robot mower 2 months ago. It’s been working well and I only have minor complaints. I definitely would’ve looked into this if I hadn’t gotten my mower yet. Note that so far the author can only guarantee it works on only one model, the one they tested it on.
I’ve followed this project, and they’re very limited on the off-the-shelf mowers that are supported.
Frankly, I’d prefer a generic version that lets me slap some servos against the wheels on a basic cordless mower and drive it around with differential steering. I don’t need it to look pretty, I just want it to cut my grass.
Actually, they seem to be launching into a new phase of compatibility, with a version 2 component set being discussed on their website that has much broader capabilities.
What? No AI integration? How are we to future proof this project? AI is the future and we must shove it into every hole.
/s, in case that wasn’t a given.
You jest, but some level of image recognition can be useful for automatic lawn mowers. It’s not too much of a stretch to call that AI.
Having it avoid doggy landmines would be a nice feature.
If you can’t find the time and motivation to just mow your fucking lawn you shouldn’t have one instead of deploying a fucking hedgehog shredder you lazy removed
I’ve got four kids. I work 50-60 hour weeks. I travel for work. I’ve got a lawn. Yes I’ve got a fucking robot mower. One of the best buys I ever did. Anything that buys me 1.5hrs a week is worth its weight in gold.
Maybe you’re just not the target market for robot mowers.
Also, a hedgehog shredder?!
We’ve got a garden full of hedgehogs. See one at least twice a week. I run the mower during the day, twice a week. If it bumps into the smallest thing it stops. I’ve literally never ever seen a hedgehog come to harm. Do you know how these contraptions actually work?
You must be great fun a parties.
I was just thinking, do these have some technology that they use to avoid running over animals? Based on your comment, it sounds like they don’t.
AFAIK they don’t. Hedgehogs are crepuscular and nocturnal and are therefore particularly at risk as they are not flight animals. Instead, they curl up and rely on the protection of their spines. This often results in serious cuts or severed limbs, which often lead to death. Another problem is that many robotic mower models do not recognise small animals without touching them first. Contrary to the claims of many manufacturers, scientific studies by the Leibnitz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research show that the robotic lawnmowers only stopped and turned off after coming into direct contact with the hedgehogs.