While the idea of robot helpers may seem farfetched, the City of Sanford has put several to work over the past month.
Visitors to the Sanford Municipal Center have likely seen autonomous lawn mowers moving around the campus lawn. While they are fun to watch, these small, efficient robots offer more than entertainment.
Key benefits of using autonomous mowers include noise abatement, increased safety, decreased carbon emissions, less disturbance to natural habitats, decreased irrigation and fertilizer, and improved turf health.
Even better, embracing innovative technology allows City employees to focus on maintaining and enhancing the park and greenway system along with the many interchanges and medians in the city limits – which continue to expand.
Before being deployed to the municipal center, the City tested the mowers at its water tanks, where they successfully took care of mowing grass so that employees didn’t have to.
On the heels of that pilot program, the City’s horticulture department has spent the past month honing the mowers’ boundaries, which are defined through GPS. The department has also worked through the challenges of the municipal center’s open space and diverse landscaping.
For example, if the mowers wind up outside of the defined range, they stop working and an alarm is triggered. A tracking system allows employees to recover the devices and get them back to work. The mowers also shut off automatically if they sense a remote object or are lifted off the ground.
Ultimately, the goal is to use emerging technology to continue providing residents with the level and quality of service they have come to expect, despite the challenges that come with a growing city.
As the program sees success, the mowers may be deployed in other public spaces. Until then, they will keep the municipal center lawn tidy through the mowing season, which typically runs May through September.