Abstract—This letter presents an automated roadside mowing
agent. A proof-of-concept testbed was developed based on a lowcost
sensor array selected for quick, efficient, and effective roadside
mowing. Dead reckoning fromshaft-mounted encoders is fused via
an extended Kalman filter with absolute positioning and heading
information provided by a dual-antenna differential (wide area
augmentation system-corrected) global positioning system (GPS)
unit, to obtain accurate localization. The dual GPS unit, which
includes an integrated gyro, provides accurate drift-free heading,
yielding a low-cost high-performance solution. Outdoor tests on
grassy and uneven terrain illustrate the success and practicality
of the proposed agent. Mowing performance was evaluated based
on consistency of consecutive mowing paths: 10.0 cm consistency
is attainable. Slow-moving drift inherent in GPS positioning does
not substantially affect automated mowing performance, which
depends more on positioning precision than accuracy.