Fluxgate guides automatic lawnmower
An
Autonnic Research product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Apr 13, 2007
The Autonnic AR35 floating core fluxgate output provides the continuous directional information used to maintain the RoboMower's course within the marked boundary of the lawn.
The RoboMower self-guided lawnmower relies on an Autonnic AR35 floating core fluxgate at the heart of its guidance system.
The fluxgate output provides the continuous directional information used to maintain the mower's course within the marked boundary of the lawn.
Manufacturer Friendly Robotics requires especially tight control over straight-line performance to minimise wandering to within one degree.
Controlling absolute direction of travel allows a little more tolerance.
Friendly Robotics considered several different technologies for the guidance system before opting for fluxgates.
"We went for fluxgates because they give us the accuracy and, with a gimballed system, they provide a solution that is cost-effective because it is relatively straightforward to implement", explains Shai Abramson, Vice President, Research and Development.
Inherent compensation for the dip angle of the earth's field is essential and Friendly preferred the liquid gimbal provided by the floating core to mechanically gimballed alternatives.
"When we originally approached Autonnic they were most co-operative in customising the design to match our specification", says Abramson.
The AR35, tilt-compensated fluxgate used is common to that in the OEM compass module offered by Autonnic's Subsystems Division, Fluxgate World.
This is designed for a number of applications including robotic guidance.
These bare-board compass modules offer product manufacturers a fully-interfaced sensor for the earth's magnetic field.
They include full analogue and digital embedded controller hardware to provide heading data with a 0.1 resolution and 0.2 accuracy and can include auto-calibration.
Whilst the floating core magnetometer provides full 2-axis tilt-compensation providing constant output by resolving only the horizontal component of the earth's magnetic field, where this is not required, costs can be reduced by opting for a fixed core sensor.
Three versions of Autonnic's range of floating core magnetometers cater for tilt angle ranges of +/-20 , +/-35 and +/-45 degrees respectively; normally undamped they can also be supplied with varying degrees of viscous damping.
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