SBIR/STTR Award attributes
The Department of Defense (DoD) operates hundreds of bases that support the daily operations of units in the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, providing services such as housing, utilities, and grounds maintenance. Currently, $25 billion (B), about 4 percent of DoD’s budget, was allocated to the costs of such services, called base operations support (BOS). A significant portion of that $25B is for vegetation management. Future USAF and DoD budgets are also expected to allocate increasing amounts to solar energy, which will benefit from autonomous mowing. Renubot’s autonomous electric mowing capability will reduce, non-mission critical labor, labor costs, improve safety for field operations and reduce CO2 emissions. The system’s cameras and LiDAR also have the potential to support installation security by monitoring the local operating environment, identifying changes, and providing alerts. Renu Robotics has developed a highly capable system that integrates GPS (with RTK [Real Time Kinematic] positioning), LiDAR and cameras to allow Renubot to position, detect and move around obstacles. Renubot’s onboard sensors provide 1 cm positioning accuracy while Renubot autonomously moves, senses and identifies objects, applies safety measures, and continuously reports on progress and operational health. Renubot can be fully managed remotely, operating on a preset schedule or real-time direction. This flexibility allows operators to avoid compromise of other missions such as aircraft operations. While automated mowing systems have begun to appear for retail customers, they are not suited to large-scale or controlled area use. Those currently available generally require perimeter wires, which induce performance issues related to placement or movement of the wires. They have limited ability to avoid obstacles, an issue Renubot’s LiDAR and cameras eliminate. Renubot, shown here with a 63” mowing deck, can readily maintain areas in the 100 to 200 acre range, as opposed to the ½ acre typical retail mowers. First and Second Generation Renubots have been developed and initial systems are in customer testing. Several generation 2 units have been sold to a large power company. Generation 3 units are in production and shipping to customers. The current customer base consists of large electric utility companies and utility-scale solar asset owners.
