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Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

offthegrid.dev

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Re: Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

#41

Post by carapace »

the_third_wave wrote: post #4

We had the same problem of grass growing heedlessly but solved it in a different way. We got a bio-fuelled autonomous self-propelled lawn management solution which intelligently solves the problem without the need for any programming, all it needs is for us to demarcate the area in need of maintenance with some special white band. Even though it is more than 30 years old it does the job just fine. It doesn't just cut…

Issat one of them fancy nanotech models that can generate physical copies of itself internally, no factory needed? Those things are so cool.

Re: Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

#42

Post by WaitWaitWha »

mhb wrote: post #19

Looks great. An enhancement to the kill switch might be to make it a normally open relay which needs to keep receiving a command to keep it closed. So that when power or communication fails it stops instead of requiring power to activate the kill switch.

Yes; any system that can kill you should be using dead-man's switch, requiring no positive input to halt, but positive input to continue.

Re: Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

#43

Post by caradine »

No mention of how it handles obstacles; sticks, rocks, holes, small animals, etc. I mowed lawns for several years as a teenager using riding mowers similar to this. I can't count the number of times I had to stop, get off, move a stick so it doesn't jam the blades, move a rock so it doesn't get flung into a nearby window...or even just slow down because the grass was too thick for the mower to handle. It strikes me as having some of the same issues my robot vacuum has. When I have to constantly get it unstuck from a lamp cord or a loose rug, it starts to become more trouble than it's worth.

Re: Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

#45

Post by akovaski »

schemescape wrote: post #39
matt_attack wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me introduce you to RC slope mowers: http://www.rcmowersusa.com/

How much does something like that cost?

Following one of the dealer links, looks like it is about $60,000 for a new one. https://www.bobcatofyork.com/default.asp?page=xInventoryDeta...

Re: Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

#46

Post by bradley_taunt »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #6

There are a couple of remote lawnmowers on the market. I'm surprised given what we can do with AI that they are not in wider use. I think I might have kept my house with a small yard if I could have just turned on the iMow and let it go.

I have 1.2 acres and run the Husqvarna 450X on my property. The boundary and guide wires were embedded into the lawn itself.

Been running this mower for 5 summers now and little to no issues. Blades need to be changed every 2-3 months depending on conditions. Overall it has saved me probably hundreds of hours on manual mowing.

Re: Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

#47

Post by throwaway0a5e »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #42
mhb wrote: post #19

Looks great. An enhancement to the kill switch might be to make it a normally open relay which needs to keep receiving a command to keep it closed. So that when power or communication fails it stops instead of requiring power to activate the kill switch.

Yes; any system that can kill you should be using dead-man's switch, requiring no positive input to halt, but positive input to continue.

I'll be sure to keep your wisdom in mind next time I have to reset the way too conservatively sized circuit breaker integral to the contractor that runs in my fume extractors.

Damn near anything can kill you. Context matters. In most cases a consumer lawnmower should probably have a deadman switch. Plenty of people have been hurt or killed over the years by poorly thought out fail "safes". It's easy to make low effort online comments about safety but when someone comes along and re-uses your widget in a use case you don't expect your assumptions may not hold. You rarely have the context to determine what's safe unless you know the end situation in which the equipment will actually operate. For a lawnmower you do. When you start generalizing your control system and applying it to other stuff you don't.

Absolutist rules of thumb are worth what you pay for them.

Re: Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

#48

Post by bri3d »

Nextgrid wrote: post #34
wongarsu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why you would do it, but using robot arms to control another robot seems like a lot of accidental complexity. Surely there has to be a generation of tractor that's new enough that most functions are exposed on CANbus but old enough that it isn't locked down yet?

The lockdowns are only for the user-facing diagnostic port. I'm not aware of any vehicle that uses encryption & authentication on the inner buses. Your only challenge is to reverse-engineer the meaning of the messages.

Some modern vehicles with FlexRay have full-bus encryption, and very modern CAN systems usually use HMAC for security sensitive stuff like immobilizer and key commands. I think ADAS systems will probably use similar in the coming years as vendors become more concerned and upset with system tampering.

But, yeah, overall, most vehicle control systems are far less evil than people seem to think. I think part of the issue is that the "vehicle hacking" community have managed to massively over-hype basic protocol / message reverse engineering.

Re: Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

#49

Post by kayodelycaon »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #47
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes; any system that can kill you should be using dead-man's switch, requiring no positive input to halt, but positive input to continue.

I'll be sure to keep your wisdom in mind next time I have to reset the way too conservatively sized circuit breaker integral to the contractor that runs in my fume extractors. Damn near anything can kill you. Context matters. In most cases a consumer lawnmower should probably have a deadman switch. Plenty of people have been hurt or killed over the years by poorly thought out fail "safes". It's easy to make low effor…

This is really pedantic. The rule is any system that risks serious harm to a person in the course of normal operation should be fail-safe, not fail-dangerous.

Examples include stuff with blades, hammers, or swinging arms moving at high speed or with great force.

Re: Remotely Controlled Lawn Tractor

#50

Post by ed312 »

83 wrote: post #8
ziggy1911 wrote: post #2

Overview of converting an old lawn tractor to a remotely controlled and immersive drone-like experience. The tractor gets equipped with video cameras, sensors, microcontrollers, wifi, and experimental augmented reality feature. A web interface with a head-up display and a gamepad allows for the control of the tractor from any device.

With this kind of setup we can finalize outsource our lawn mowing to India ;)

When you consider the large # of people who _pay money_ to play Farm/Driving simulators, this might actually be an ideal job for some folks.
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