Design and simulation of an autonomous, fault-tolerant lawnmower
Design and simulation of an autonomous, fault-tolerant lawnmower
Background
Lawn mowers that maintain an assigned area at an adjustable lawn height are no longer a technological novelty: they are already available in commercial versions and generally cost between 1400 and 2000 euros. However, the common control algorithms of such automatic lawn mowers unfortunately leave a lot to be desired in terms of user quality: they mow their territory more or less according to a random pattern without any guarantee of ever having mowed a particular piece of lawn in a given time window. In order to keep the grass at an acceptable height at all, such an automatic lawn mower also has to be active for very long hours, depending on the size of the territory assigned to it; for areas of 1400 square metres often 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Job description
The aim of this thesis is to
- an overview of commercially available automatic lawnmowers is to be compiled and their behaviour analysed (using simmulations if necessary),
- an overview of any existing relevant, alternative, prototypical research developments is to be compiled and analysed (also using simmulations if necessary),
- develop a concept for an alternative control algorithm that is guaranteed to mow all areas of the territory exactly once in a fault-tolerant manner with significantly less working time per week. In addition, the algorithm to be developed should
- should also have fault tolerance properties so that it enables the lawn mower to deal with obstacles in the territory.
The properties of the control algorithm to be developed must be verified by analysis or simulation.
In a subsequent student project, the idea is to implement the developed algorithm in a lawnmower that is capable of automatic operation by replacing its previous algorithm and to prove its true-to-design functioning through real-world experiments. Both tasks can also be completed by two students working together as a team.