Autonomous Mowing—Improving Efficiency and Safety of Roadside Vegetation Control
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 16, Issue 3
Abstract
This paper discusses the use of autonomous mowers for application in highway vegetation control. In recent work by these writers, a unique autonomous mower testbed has been developed to prove the efficacy of such an approach. The testbed’s uniqueness comes from its relatively low cost and its new and accurate sensing method. The mowing performance is evaluated based on the consistency of consecutive mowing paths from actual outdoor testing. Then, a hypothetical implementation is used to evaluate the practicality of the system in California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) applications. Results show that autonomous mowers have the potential to significantly reduce Caltrans’ dependence on herbicide, improve worker and public safety, lead to enhanced levels of environmental quality, and decrease the operation’s costs.
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Acknowledgments
The writers gratefully acknowledge the Division of Research and Innovation of the California, Department of Transportation for the support of this work through the Advanced Highway Maintenance and Construction Technology Research Center at the University of California, Davis.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 16 • Issue 3 • September 2010
Pages: 206 - 215
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Jun 15, 2009
Accepted: Oct 22, 2009
Published online: Aug 13, 2010
Published in print: Sep 2010
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