Robotic lawn mowers today use mechanical bump sensors and ultrasonic sensors for object detection. These sensors have their drawbacks when it comes to small obstacle detection and overall safety. Some of the key challenges with ultrasonic in this space are:

• Missed detections of small obstacles like apples, pinecones, rocks and fallen branches that tend to damage the blades of the lawn mower.
• Slow to detect moving objects like hedgehogs, pets and crawling children that pose a significant safety hazard
• Poor at sensing objects that deflect/absorb sound waves like bushes or flowers

This demo showcases TI mmWave radar’s capability to overcome the above shortcomings to enable reliable small obstacle detection and collision avoidance.