[mowbot] [Fwd: Re: Autonomous Lawnmower]

Monta Elkins (Monta nospam at vt.edu)
Wed, 09 Oct 1996 08:26:25 -0400

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I found another lawnmower on the web.
(At least I don't think anybody's mentioned
it yet).

See http://www.mil.ufl.edu/people/erik/

Here is a note from someone who worked on it.

-Monta Elkins

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| Monta nospam at bev.net ----------------- http://www.bev.net |
| System Administrator - Blacksburg Electronic Village |
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Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 14:55:20 -0400
To: Monta Elkins <monta nospam at bev.net>
From: Erik de la Iglesia <erikd nospam at pobox1.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Autonomous Lawnmower

At 09:15 AM 10/8/96 -0400, you wrote:
>Is that really a lawn mower on your homepage?
>
>Do you have any more info about it?

Yes it is real, and it is not like the toys you see running around on the
CIA front lawn. This mower can cut St. Augustine grass (very think Florida
strain) and travel uphill at a 45 degree incline. The mechanics were built
before I started working on it using two old IBM lineprinter motors, but I
added the power circuitry and an HC11 based control system capable of
running Interactive C or Image Craft C (IC, ICC). The power source is a
marine deep-cycle gel-cell with approximately six hours of life. The cutting
device is a weed-wacker mounted towards the front of the unit.

The project has been handed over to a graduate student at MIL for now and I
haven't heard of any recent developments. The last thing I did with it was
demo at EFair last February. I am now doing graduate work at Stanford and no
longer associated with the project.

My new email is erikd nospam at leland.stanford.edu although my MIL account forwards
any mail there. I currently do not have a homepage here. My other work in
robotics included the Subjugator autonomous submarine, walking robots, and
some work on an autonomous helicopter.

Erik

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