Kingdom Technologies Increases Accuracy For Robotic Lawn Mowers 10x with Skylark Precise Positioning Service

“We have developed an autonomous robotic lawn mower for large terrains. Precise positioning from Swift provides markedly better results when compared to the standard GNSS solutions.”

Joan Kangro, CEO Kingdom Technologies

Kingdom Technologies is a UK based company specializing in large terrain robotic lawnmowers. Since its founding in 2018, it has become one of the fastest-growing robotics startups in Scotland.

Robotic lawn mowers have traditionally used perimeter wire to define the mowing space. While this is a massive leap forward compared to push mowers, perimeter wire poses several challenges. First, perimeter wire increases the total cost of the product for the end user and requires labor-intensive installation that typically must be carried out by a professional. And if the wire is damaged, there is often no indication of where the problem has occurred, meaning a professional needs to come back to the property and dig up the entire perimeter. Second, it does not enable patterned mowing, forcing mowers to move randomly across the grass. These erratic movements result in highly inefficient mowing, with some areas of lawn often being missed while other areas are mowed repeatedly.

Perimeter wire is also not a suitable solution for landscapers who travel to many different locations and cannot install wires at each one. Landscapers could dramatically increase their efficiency if they could leverage robotic lawn mowers, so a new solution was needed.

Kingdom Technologies sought to develop a robotic lawn mower that leveraged GNSS positioning to establish a geofence and determine its location, eliminating the need for perimeter wire. Kingdom Technologies evaluated a standalone GNSS receiver as well as a receiver with corrections to enhance its accuracy. Kingdom Technologies selected Swift’s Skylark Precise Positioning Service as its GNSS corrections service.

Using Skylark, Kingdom Technologies achieved accuracy of less than 5 centimeters, compared to 50 centimeters using just the GNSS receiver alone. The accuracy enabled by Skylark allows for more precise geofencing and navigation, so no edges are missed or nearby objects damaged.