Customer Stories

SOLUTION Key in eliminating the operational limitations of an autonomous mower was to combine powerful solar panels and GNSS for navigation and security. The solar panels 'fuel' the robot movement and the GNSS board. When asked about the choice of GNSS, Vitirover's Chief Technology Officer Xavier David-Beaulieu points to precision and reliability as essential elements. "We knew we needed high-precision. Our first thought was to use a camera, but grass and debris on a vision-based system would quickly cover the camera. GNSS was the answer." David-Beaulieu was already familiar with GNSS solutions from Ashtech S.A.S., a French-based GNSS developer. "I've used Ashtech boards for a long time and trust them. As part of Trimble, the choice was straightforward." When asked about precision, David-Beaulieu noted that standard GNSS have around 1 meter precision, which won't work for applications such as along a high speed railway or around electrical fields transformers. "We needed a solution that was very accurate, in the centimeter range," he confirmed. "Autonomous operation near a railway, for instance, requires the robot to operate very accurately between the tracks and the sidewalk." The technical team selected the Trimble MB-Two that incorporates the MB-Two Z-Blade technology, which is able to drive the GNSS agnostic engine and acquire over- the-air satellite corrections for RTX through its embedded L-band hardware or get correction from a NTRIP Server for centimeter-level accuracy. "We needed two GNSS antennas to ensure accurate heading measurements even in areas with magnetic charge, such as railways. On average, the Vitirover achieves 5 cm accuracy," said David-Beaulieu. The robot is also built with security features including a rechargeable battery and a second GPS system, making the units difficult, if not impossible, to steal. Each Vitirover robot is even tracked in real-time by a shepherd or the human interface, even when the power supply is down. Photo Cred.: Vitirover

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