> I'm really not sure why robots aren't already vacuuming our floors, raking the leaves and mowing our lawns by now
I think about this every time I mow my lawn. I had this crazy vision:
Take a flatbed trailer and hook up "charging pods".
Invest in some robot lawn mowers. This would be fun as they'll probably need to be built yourself. They could have a deck size of whatever (12" ?) with big batteries, solar collectors (maybe), wireless communications, some kind of camera or a way to "see" obstacles.
Deploy multiple ones at a single site... maybe 4 on a .25 acre lot?
Have them all communicate with relative proficiency in determining who should mow where and what and for how long.
Once they are all done, they go back to the trailer and into their pod where they will charge until the next site.
Then go from site to site like any other lawn care specialist.
On each location you would have a couple human operators (who will also be driving the trailers). These people will operate the more delicate things like trimming. They will also provide a human element for analyzing the environment. Is there a dog outside? Maybe the operator has a smart phone and "tags" that object which gets transferred to the mowers and they know to avoid it.
If you could get the price down far enough it might be able to compete in a number of markets.
> If you could get the price down far enough it might be able to compete in a number of markets.
It's going to have be really cheap to compete with minimum wage labour. Especially since minimum wage labour is discarded when it goes wrong whereas your expensive robots will need expensive servicing.
I think about this every time I mow my lawn. I had this crazy vision:
Take a flatbed trailer and hook up "charging pods".
Invest in some robot lawn mowers. This would be fun as they'll probably need to be built yourself. They could have a deck size of whatever (12" ?) with big batteries, solar collectors (maybe), wireless communications, some kind of camera or a way to "see" obstacles.
Deploy multiple ones at a single site... maybe 4 on a .25 acre lot?
Have them all communicate with relative proficiency in determining who should mow where and what and for how long.
Once they are all done, they go back to the trailer and into their pod where they will charge until the next site.
Then go from site to site like any other lawn care specialist.
On each location you would have a couple human operators (who will also be driving the trailers). These people will operate the more delicate things like trimming. They will also provide a human element for analyzing the environment. Is there a dog outside? Maybe the operator has a smart phone and "tags" that object which gets transferred to the mowers and they know to avoid it.
If you could get the price down far enough it might be able to compete in a number of markets.