I got an idea for a robotic lawner today. It seems the only ones available are based on self propelled electric personal mowers that detect obstacles in your lawn. My idea is for a commercial riding mower guided by a local positioning system. A laptop triangulates a stationary radio source and the moving mower remotely controls where the lawn mower goes. Someone must program the route, by mowing the lawn first and the computer records the position of the mower and the “plays” that back to mow the lawn. Of course bump, range sensors, and a variety of other bells and whistles are needed to keep from running over the flower bed.
There is nothing like this in production. The goal would be to reduce the personnel necessary from two to one person. Someone who runs the weed eater while the mower does the large part of the lawn. Preferrably, large lawns like golf courses, apartments, etc.
It should be an add-on or slight modification to most riding lawn mowers. After all, someone has to ride the course once at least. A laptop computer could be the controller for the prototype, but would probably be too expensive ~$600 for production. There is lots of room in the software for improvements, like changing the route in the computer due to changes in the landscape. Barriers to the radio waves may be a problem. Multiple radio sources could improve accuracy. The GPS system is a good example, but it’s not accurate to within inches that you would want for a lawn.