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tips to developing
outdoor robots for unstructured environments
Scythe Robotics shares tips about sensor selection, ruggedized hardware, and software optimization for its commercial mowers. Jack Morrison • Co-Founder, Scythe Robotics
Every roboticist has heard about the three Ds: dull, dirty and dangerous tasks we’d be better off having robots do for us. Across off-road industries like landscaping, agriculture and forestry, people have to perform repetitive work in incredibly uncomfortable conditions, o en with the risk of dangerous accidents. Faced with additional challenges om worker recruitment and retention to worker safety and efficiency, these industries present huge opportunities for robotics. From landscape maintenance today to trash pickup and forest fire mitigation tomorrow, autonomous outdoor robots can help humanity take far better care of the environment. But building robots to complete tasks like these in unstructured, off-road environments presents design challenges different om those encountered in structured environments like warehouses and factories and on-road environments like streets and sidewalks. At Scythe Robotics, we are building autonomous solutions for off-road environments, focusing first on a self-driving mower for commercial landscaping – an all-electric, zeroemission solution for businesses on the ontline of green space management. Commercial landscaping, an enormous $105 billion industry, is filled with dull, dirty and dangerous challenges. It also faces labor shortages that are straining businesses and hamstringing growth. There are three keys to designing our mowers that we’ll share for developing robots to tackle the complexities of unstructured, off-road environments.
14
November 2021
Scythe-robotics_RHBK21_Vs1.indd 14
www.therobotreport.com
THE ROBOT REPORT
11/3/21 1:30 PM
