Boundary Setting Using Permanent Magnets for Robotic Lawn Mower

The purpose of this study is to develop a method for defining the operating boundary of a robotic lawn mower using permanent magnets. In recent years, robotic lawn mowers have become widely used in both residential and agricultural applications. These mowers can move autonomously within a designated area and mow the grass, greatly reducing the burden of manual labor. Conventional robotic lawn mowers typically use wires, GNSS, or LiDAR to set boundaries. The wire-based method is burdensome to install and reconfigure, especially over large areas or in regions with complex geometry. The use of GNSS requires high-precision positioning; however, its accuracy can be adversely affected by environmental conditions. Methods using LiDAR are susceptible to obstacles and difficult to operate in dynamic environments. In order to address these problems, this study proposes a new system that utilizes permanent magnets and a geomagnetic sensor to define and detect the boundary. In this paper, we verify the feasibility of the proposed system, through experiments in which a mobile robot equipped with a geomagnetic sensor moves within an area defined by permanent magnets.