Paper:
Development of a Flail-Type Mowing System
Yuki Iwano*, Akihiro Tanaka**, and Kojiro Iizuka***
*Fukui University of Technology
3-6-1 Gakuen, Fukui, Fukui 910-8505, Japan
**National Institute of Technology, Akashi College
679-3 Nishioka, Uozumi-cho, Akashi, Hyogo 674-0084, Japan
***Shibaura Institute of Technology
307 Fukasaku, Minuma-ku, Saitama, Saitama 337-8570, Japan
In recent years, most mowing work has been performed manually using a rotation grass cutter, which is a challenging task for workers, especially during the summer. Therefore, this study designed a system that can reduce their workload. A flail-type mowing system capable of mowing dense grass areas was designed. The performance of the proposed mowing system was experimentally evaluated.

The developed flail mowing system
- [1] H. Kurita, M. Oku, T. Nakamura, T. Yoshida, and T. Fukao, “Localization method using camera and LiDAR and its application to autonomous mowing in orchards,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.34, No.4, pp. 877-886, 2022. https://doi.org/10.20965/jrm.2022.p0877
- [2] H. Kurita, M. Iida, W. Cho, and M. Suguri, “Rice autonomous harvesting: operation framework,” J. of Field Robotics, Vol.34, No.6, pp. 1084-1099, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.21705
- [3] T. Fukukawa, K. Sekiyama, Y. Hasegawa, and T. Fukuda, “Vision-based mowing boundary detection algorithm for an autonomous lawn mower,” J. Adv. Comput. Intell. Intell. Inform., Vol.20, No.1, pp. 49-56, 2016. https://doi.org/10.20965/jaciii.2016.p0049
- [4] M. Norremark, H. W. Griepentrog, J. Nielsen, and H. T. Sogaard, “Evaluation of an autonomous GPS-based system for intra-row weed control by assessing the tilled area,” Precision Agriculture, Vol.13, No.2, pp. 149-162, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-011-9234-5
- [5] B. Thuilot, C. Cariou, P. Martinet, and M. Berducat, “Automatic guidance of a farm tractor relying on a single CP-DGPS,” Autonomous Robots, Vol.13, No.1, pp. 53-71, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015678121948
- [6] M. Yagi and S. Hashimoto, “EnergyRobot,” Proc. of the 68th National Convention of IPSJ, pp. 79-80, 2006.
- [7] Y. Nakatsuchi et al., “Development of grass cutter robot for steep slope,” Proc. of 55th Joint Automatic Control Conf., 1K304, 2012.
- [8] Y. Nakatsuchi et al., “Development of grass cutter robot for steep slope,” Proc. of 2012 JSME Conf. on Robotics and Mechatronics, 1A1-H05, 2012.
- [9] M. Dohi and H. Yokoyama, “Mowing robot of weed on agricultural field border,” Proc. of 2009 JSME Conf. on Robotics and Mechatronics, 1A2-B13, 2009.
- [10] S. Miwa and M. Sasaki, “Study on mechanism of safely mowing robot in steep slopes,” Proc. of 2009 JSME Hokuriku-Shinetsu Branch Conf., pp. 435-436, 2009.
- [11] Y. Iwano and A. Kobayashi, “Development of a trimmer-type mowing robot,” Proc. of 2012 Int. Conf. on Advanced Mechatronic Systems, pp. 397-401, 2012.
- [12] Y. Iwano, T. Hasegawa, A. Tanaka, and K. Iizuka, “Development of the trimmer-type mowing system against a slope,” Proc. of the 2016 Int. Conf. on Advanced Mechatronic Systems, pp. 23-28, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAMechS.2016.7813415
This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationa License.