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A Fully Automated Lawn Mower Using Solar Panel

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Jour of Adv Research in Dynamical & Control Systems, Vol. 10, 07-Special Issue, 2018

A Fully Automated Lawn Mower Using Solar

Panel
V.Kubendran, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, SRM IST, Chennai, Tamilnadu
*S.George Fernandez, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, SRM IST, Chennai,
Tamilnadu, george.electrix@gmail.com
K.Vijayakumar, Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, SRM IST, Chennai, Tamilnadu
K.Selvakumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, SRM IST, Chennai, Tamilnadu
Abstract---The solar lawn mower is a fully automated grass cutting robotic vehicle powered by solar energy that
also avoids obstacles and Is capable of fully automated grass cutting without the need of any human intervention.
The system uses 12v batteries to power The vehicle movement motors as well as the grass cutter motor. We use a
solar panel to charge the battery. The grass cutter and Vehicle motors are interfaced to an Arduino Nano that
controls the working of all the motors. It is also used to interface an ultrasonic sensor for object detection. The SoC
moves the bot in the forward direction in case no obstacle is detected. On obstacle detection; the ultrasonic sensor
monitors it and the SoC thus stops the grass cutter motor to avoid any damage to the object/human/animal whatever
it is. In order to detect the boundaries the bot uses Light dependent resistors(LDR) on a right angle to trigger start
event. The detection of the laser on the other side triggers the bot to stop and turn a right angle clockwise and and
move to next row. The bot takes another right angle turn clockwise and moves forward till the next laser fence is
detected. The detection of both the lasers simultaneously triggers the stop event. The L293D9 bi-motor
controller/driver is used.
Keywords---Arduino Nano, LDR, ultrasonic sensor, L293D9 motor driver.

I. Introduction
The lawn mover is an aid in the mundane task of grass cutting and tending to lawns. Due to the revolution of
green movement in the present scenario the industries with major campus areas are changing the percentage of
greenery in the campuses and increased greenery causes increased effort and money to tend to.In such cases the
lawn mover proves to be an god sent. Due to increased availability of system on chips, the lawn mover can be
automated very easily and also the reduced size and cost of Dc motors causes the system to be independent of fossil
fuels to be able to tap into renewable energies. The presence of Ultrasonic sensors and light dependent resistors in a
smaller and cheaper packaging cause the bot to be more aware of its surroundings. Due to the presence of ardiuno
oin the system causes and increase in the module that can be added.
Traditional design of lawn movers had motored powered engines which required regular maintenance such as
engine oil and greasing. They also created a lot of noise pollution and air pollution. In the cold and harsh
environment the fossil fuel powered motors tend to freeze and not run. These problems are solved by using electric
motors . They are also much more greener because they use solar panel.The mover uses battery chorded system
causes a range as alimitationn and damage to the chords.

*Corresponding Author: S.George Fernandez, E-mail: george.electrix@gmail.com

Article History: Received: April 19, 2018, Accepted: May 22, 2018
977
 A Fully Automated Lawn Mower Using Solar Panel

Figure 1. Block Diagram for Solar Grass

Motivation
The lawn mover industry has not seen any disruption in product development in the recent past.The advent of
electric motors and small sized SoCs as motivated us to implement these development into lawn mover designs and
also previous human effort and time is being lost doing a job which is naturally redundant.The usage of highly
explosive materials in the regular household could cause house fiw and other humanly losses. The hard to control
nature of the engine was improved upon by the simplistic proformance characteristic of the electric motor We
wanted to save this human effort which could be put to better use.

II. Objective
The solar lawn mover is a fully automated grass cutting robotic vehicle .Powered bysolar energy that also avoids
obstacles and is capable of fully automated grass cutting without the need for human intervention. The brain of the
bot is the ardiuno nano which decides the various actions. The L293D9 motor driver excutes these orders by
changing the power and polarity of the motors.The ultrasonic sensors detects the obstactcles such as stones/animals
etc. The LDRs are the crown jewel in detecting the fences or boundaries of the lawn marked by the lasers. The laser
beam A, when detected, causes the start event and the bot mves forward until it detects laser beam B.When laser
beam B is detected the bot stops for the time period of two seconds and then takes a right angle turn and moves
forward by 8 inches and takes another right angle turn and starts moving forward. This steps are repaeated until the
laser beam C detected along with laser beam A. When laser Beam A and C are detected triggers the stop event .The
movement motors runs at 60-80 rpm and the blade motor runs at 1000 rpm. The two blades are arranged in an anti-
parallel tangential manner. The ground clearance of the bot is 2.5 inches.The solar panel is 8x4 inches in dimension.
The ultrasonic sensor is placed at an angle of 15 degrees and set to minimum detection range of two feet to the
common axis. The LDRs are placed at perpendicular to each other.

III. Components
A. Ardinuno Nano
We used Ardiuno Nano in this bot in order to increase the modularity of the bot and also account for future
modification . The major advantage of Ardiuno Nano is its capability to perform in such a small form factor. Also
the programming language used for Ardiuno is C, which is a very popular high level language
Technical specification
 Microcontroller -ATmega 328
 Operating voltage-5v
 Flash memory -32 kb
 Clock speed -16 MHz
 Analog IN pins -8
 PCB size -18x45 mm
Jour of Adv Research in Dynamical & Control Systems, Vol. 10, 07-Special Issue, 2018

 PCB weight -7 grams

Figure 2. Ardiuno Nano

B. L293d9 Motor Driver
This typical motor driver or motor driver ic which allows two DC motors to be driven in either directions.
L293D9 is a 16 pin IC which can control asset of two DC motors simultaneously in any direction. It means that you
can control two Dc motors in a single L293D9 IC
Technical specification
 Operating voltage- 5V
 Operating current – 3 amps
 Output current- 1.2 amps
 Dimensions – 44x37 mm

Figure 3. L293D9
C. DC Series Motor
The speed controller works by varing the average voltage sent to the motor. It could do this by simply adjusting
the voltage sent to the motor,but this an inefficient method. A better way is to switch the motor supply on and off
very quickly. If the switching is fast enough, the motor functioning does not get affected, it only notices the average
effect
Technical specification
 Operating voltage- 12V
 Operating current-80 mA
 Rpm-60-80 rpm, 1000 rpm

*Corresponding Author: S.George Fernandez, E-mail: george.electrix@gmail.com

Article History: Received: April 19, 2018, Accepted: May 22, 2018
979
 A Fully Automated Lawn Mower Using Solar Panel

.
Figure 3. DC Series Motor

Figure 4. Characteristic of DC Series Motor

IV. Algorithm & Flowchart

Figure 5. Algorithmic Flowchart

Step 1: Start
 Step 2: Laser Beam A detected
 Step 3: Move forward
Jour of Adv Research in Dynamical & Control Systems, Vol. 10, 07-Special Issue, 2018

 Step 4:If obstacle not detected move forward

 Step 5: Laser Beam B detected
 Step6: Turn 90
 Step7: Move 8 inches.
 Step8: Turn 90
 Step 9: Move Forward\
 Step10:Laser Beam A & C detected
 Step11:Stop

V. Pictorial Representation

Figure 6. Laser Beam A Detected

Figure 7. Laser Beam B Detected

Figure 8. Changing the Direction of the Vehicle

*Corresponding Author: S.George Fernandez, E-mail: george.electrix@gmail.com

Article History: Received: April 19, 2018, Accepted: May 22, 2018
981
 A Fully Automated Lawn Mower Using Solar Panel

Figure 9. Stop At Laser Beam A & C

VI. Results & Calculation

The capacity of the battery was 2000 mAh and discharging current was 1.2 amps and the output of the solar
panel was 12 v and 5 watts. The discharging time was calculated by dividing the battery capacity by the discharging
current. The discharging time was 2 hours approximately.
Using the formula E=VIT, we calculated the charging the time which was approximately 4 and a half hour.

Figure 10. REAL-TIME ROBOT

VII. Future Enhancements

In the current state the bot is capable of completing its objective with 100% success. But with the changing
trends in technology were features can be added with the increasing feasibility of the components
Some of the proposed features are:-
 Using Geo Fencing technology the bot can be made capable of tackling more complex boundary shapes with
higher precision.
 Using a GSM module the bot can made capable of sending and receiving messages from the user’s mobile phone
through SMS.
 Boundary area calculations can be made more precise by more complex algorithm designs and estimates of time
and energy required can be displayed.
 The bot can be designed to complete multiple lawns in the same session by travelling to the next lawn
automatically using satellite tracking.
 Automatic blade changing warning can be provided by the bot to the user.

VIII. Conclusion
The previous bot systems were studied and a suitable design was made. The schematic for the same was made on
which prototyping will take place. The components have been chosen based on design requirement and based on a
few other parameters. Based on data collected from research papers, we made a few changes to make our design
better. A timeline was made with the knowledge of the review dates and work has proceeded according to it. In the
second review we have made a prototype model of the hardware and software system with a demonstration with
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Jour of Adv Research in Dynamical & Control Systems, Vol. 10, 07-Special Issue, 2018

ultrasonic and infrared sensor. The prototype is on a metal sheet chassis and the detection was done using ultrasonic
sensor and the output was obtained. The green revolution has caused a burst in the lawn area and the requirement for
a bot.Since grassing cutting is a mundane task requiring a lot of time; it is believed that human time should not be
wasted on such tasks or a least reduced to the bare minimum. The cost effectiveness and the ease provided makes
the bot to be a necessity instead of a luxury.

References
[1] US RE 8560, Passmore, Everett G., "Improvement in Lawn Mowers", published 23 February 1869.
[2] Ernest L. Hall. A Survey of Robot Lawn Mowers, Available from: Ernest L. Hall Retrieved on: 06 October
2015.
[3] Technical Solutions, J. Hammond and R. Rafaels, “Build the Lawn Ranger,” Radio Electronics, June 1990,
pp. 31-49.
[4] Robert Zondlo, U.S. Patent 5,461,292, Remote controlled guidance system for working vehicle, October
24, 1995.
[5] Andre Colens, U.S. Patent 5,444,965, Continuous and autonomous mowing system August 29, 1995.

*Corresponding Author: S.George Fernandez, E-mail: george.electrix@gmail.com

Article History: Received: April 19, 2018, Accepted: May 22, 2018
983