If popular, this robotic electric greens keeper may ultimately have a negative effect on green jobs creation, though the company contends it will allow golf course employees to do other tasks.
The RG3 utilizes proprietary positioning tech that is said to go beyond GPS to do precision mowing without the aid of a pesky human operator. A golf course superintendent programs in his specs, sets-up 4 bowling pin-sized beacons and the robot mower cuts the green with the same scary precision every time. Hopefully, this is overkill for your suburban backyard.
more info @ precisepath.com
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This seems like it could have some potential serious negative effects on the environment.
Golf courses can be environmentally hazardous due to fertilizer use, monoculture and the gas-powered equipment used in daily course maintenance. Any gas-powered lawn machine is generally a big polluter. The interest in this device is the simply the technology used etc., though golf courses aren’t going away anytime soon and many are quite beautiful. Also many golf courses are now targets of developers in many urban settings – nothing green about more townhouses.
Here are some links to help gain some education and insight into the wildlife value of golf courses. They are not monocultures, and most use less fertilizer and pesticides on a unit area basis than home lawns. Most people who don’t golf (and even many people who DO golf) hold misconceptions about golf courses that are not fact- or science-based. I hope you will look at what the following groups have done and continue to do relative to making golf courses wildlife and environmentally friendly. I have done some of my best birding on golf courses. Thanks, in advance, for taking a look at them. (I think you will have to cut/paste the URLs).
Wildlife Links, a partnership between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Golf Assoc.
http://www.nfwf.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Browse_All_Programs&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=4043
http://www.usga.org/turf/environmental_programs/wild_links_program/wild_links_program.html
Audubon International – a program to promote wildlife on golf courses
http://www.golfandenvironment.org/Default.htm
About the mowers…
They are electric (not gas-powered). The intent is not to replace people, but to allow them to multi-task while the machines are doing the mowing. This increases productivity and provides a better product (better mowing than humans can do). BTW, I neither sell these mowers nor have any stock in the company. But I am familiar with them (teach about them in my class). And FYI, there have been robotic mowers (also electric) available for home lawns for a number of years now. They are more common in the European market, but can be purchased in the U.S. You can even buy them on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Friendly-Robotics-RL800-Robomower/dp/B000087QPC
Hey Tony – I’ve updated the post to reflect that the mower is electric. We were aware of the robotic mower market. You’re right about bird watching. I golf in the sticks and there’s plenty of wildlife around the course.
Hello
Wow i’ve never seen anything like that here in the UK I would be interested in understanding how it copes with bumps or things that have fallen onto the area it is trying to cut. I wonder if they will create a solar powered one?