ANTHBOT’s robot lawn mowers are redefining smart lawn care for residential gardens with each passing day. Its offerings can already mow your lawn autonomously, and if need be, even use stored grass clippings for mulching. Now, with the introduction of HoloSense, a fusion navigation technology, in its M5 Pro and M9 Pro robot mowers, the company is trying to fill a small but important gap in the way these autonomous mowers maneuver without hindrance from obstacles or navigation lapses, performing their job with more precision.
Over the years, robotic mowers have appeared with dazzling individual technologies that impress us on paper. LiDAR for obstacle detection, RTK for navigation, and AI cameras to distinguish various objects in the path have become common features. Mowers with these technologies onboard claim big results, but rely chiefly on one or two of them, and tend to struggle when environmental conditions change.
The ANTHBOT M5 Pro and M9 Pro robot movers, with HoloSense in their guts, do not rely on these technologies individually. According to the company, HoloSense allows the M Pro series devices to combine a 360-degree LiDAR scanner, Full-band RTK, 4G NetRTK, and an AI-enabled camera detection system in a single unit and use them simultaneously for the most effective results. Meaning, one technology compensates for the signal interruptions in the other, and so forth.
The fusion technology allows the mower to continue operating in heavily angled terrains, wide open yards, and areas shaded with trees and walls. Being a combination of different navigation approaches working in support of each other, HoloSense allows the robot to fall back on LiDAR sensor and visual recognition to hold its position when the primary RTK satellite signal is lost, navigating under the shade of trees.
In the wide-open yard, where the LiDAR sensor has no significant orientation points, the M Pro robots from ANTHBOT can switch automatically to Full-band RTK for reliable operation without parameter wires, and use the AI camera for identifying grass from the camouflaging pavement, an unattended garden tool, or your doggo’s favorite tennis ball.
Glass façades have increasingly become a problem for robotic lawn mowers working on one or maybe two navigation and sensor technologies. For instance, mowers with LiDAR struggle with the reflection from high floor-to-ceiling glass doors and walls. With the HoloSense-equipped M5 Pro and M9 Pro, this will rarely be a problem, since when the LiDAR fails to identify the glass façade, RTK will kick in and lock in the GPS settings to ensure the mower runs easily around the front of the glass and back into its designated path.
By simultaneously using the four core technologies, HoloSense-enabled M Pro series robots will work without the boundary wires. Since these robots, working on your garden, are aware of their location at all times, you can sit back with your phone and configure and map your area on the dedicated app, and let the robots do their business uninterrupted.
The M Pro will have a small batch available on Amazon starting June 16, and will be officially launched in larger quantities on Amazon and the official website starting July 20. We are yet to learn further details about the ANTHBOT M5 Pro and the M9 Pro robotic lawn mowers. At this time, what we can be sure of, from the previous releases, M5 Pro will be designed for smaller lawns, while the M9 Pro will manage lawns up to 1000m² with ease.
