Imagining what future technology looks like has been part of literature and motion pictures for decades. Scenes of robots performing normal and not-so-normal tasks make us wonder if those visions will ever be a real thing in our lives. Recent advances in technology have brought us little robots that automatically vacuum your floors, autonomous tractors for agriculture and early versions of self-driving cars. The idea behind all these innovations is to improve efficiency and performance while giving us non-robots more time to do other things. If I don’t have to be vacuuming, plowing my field or driving my car to work, I’ll have more time to do what I want. There is also a strong possibility that a robot might make fewer mistakes or perform certain tasks more safely than the average human.
Robots are also available to perform tasks that humans are less interested in doing. Like most industries, golf course maintenance operations are struggling to find workers. Many other industries have used automation to offset issues around labor scarcity or rising labor costs, and golf is likely to head in the same direction. Conversations during USGA Course Consulting Service visits increasingly focus on labor challenges and how to meet expectations with less staff. Automated mowers may end up providing part of the answer.
While automation and “smart” machines have been used in large-scale agriculture for many years, can those same technologies be applied to golf courses? Are they viable on the much smaller scale of a typical golf operation? Are autonomous mowers a feasible option to overcome staffing challenges and rising labor costs? This article will look to answer some of these questions by exploring the current state of autonomous mowing on golf courses, the benefits and challenges associated with this technology, and the outlook for the future.
Before we start, though, it is important to define what we mean by an autonomous mower. For the purpose of this article, an autonomous mower is a machine that may require a human being for transport and/or setup, but does not require an operator to perform the mowing.
In some form or another, several turf equipment companies have been working on autonomous mower technology for 20+ years. However, not much has moved beyond the prototype phase. A small company, Precise Path, introduced the golf world to the RG3 greens mower back in 2009. Facilities that initially tested the RG3 were impressed but the mower was not made commercially available until 2015. That was also the year that Precise Path was acquired by the parent company of Cub Cadet. Early adoption of the RG3 was not widespread, but Cub Cadet continued to refine the technology and made some nice improvements to the mower. Superintendents’ hopes were high in early 2020, when Cub Cadet was on the cusp of commercially releasing the RGX greens mower, an upgrade to the RG3. Those hopes were dashed just weeks after the GCSAA Conference that year when Cub Cadet announced it was suspending the program indefinitely. Meanwhile, John Deere and Toro displayed concept autonomous mowers at the 2020 GCSAA Conference. These were larger, five-reel mowers presumably designed for fairway mowing. It is also worth noting that a company called Turflynx, based in Portugal, was developing an all-electric, completely autonomous triplex fairway mower that was being tested in Europe in 2019. Turflynx was recently acquired by Toro.
Cub Cadet’s departure from the autonomous game left a void that still has not been filled. Autonomously mowing greens is not an option currently available to golf course superintendents. Large-area autonomous mowing with reel mowers is being worked on but is still not commercially available.
So, while the traditional golf course maintenance equipment manufacturers continue to quietly work on their autonomous mowing technology platforms, other companies have introduced their own autonomous mower options. Most of these have been geared for the homeowner or commercial landscape market. Companies like Echo, Husqvarna, Worx and Belrobotics all have similarly designed robotic lawn mowers. These are all rotary-style, narrow-cutting-width mowers. They are battery powered and are typically controlled by a smartphone app. A boundary wire has traditionally been the way to keep these mowers in their proper place, but new advances have eliminated the need for a wire. Europe gets the gold star for early adoption of these mowers. In fact, the robotic lawn mower market in Europe is estimated to reach $1.5 billion by the end of next year. Husqvarna claims that their Automower mows over 2 million lawns around the world.
Another company, Turftroniq in the Netherlands, sells two aftermarket kits that can convert most modern fairway mowers to be partially or fully autonomous. Their AMS kit still requires an operator be on the vehicle at all times, but steering and cutting unit raising/lowering are done autonomously. Their RMS kit makes the mower fully autonomous. An interesting benefit to this technology is that if you ever want to take control and mow, you just jump on the mower and flip a switch. Sadly for U.S. customers, Turftroniq products are currently limited to the European market.
Some golf courses in Europe and Canada have been using autonomous mowers for both roughs and fairways. WINSTONgolf, in Germany, has jumped into this world more than most. Course Manager Jordan Tschimperle uses 24 of the Husqvarna Automowers to mow fairways and rough on 27 of their 45 holes and a Bigmow by Belrobotics to mow their driving range. They also extensively tested the previously mentioned Turflynx all-electric fairway mower back in 2019. Current plans are to purchase a few more Automowers as well as the Belrobotics Ballpicker for their driving range this year. With more robots on their maintenance staff than people, WINSTONgolf is realizing substantial labor and fuel savings.
One of the first questions that comes up when discussing autonomous mowers is how much they cost. This is a great question because other than the small, rotary-style mowers there is nothing commercially available to cite. Small mowers like the Husqvarna Automower will set a course back about $6,000 per machine. This includes expenses associated with setting them up. Husqvarna is very excited to roll out their newest version of the Automower in 2022. However, this machine, like most others in this market segment, will have a limited presence in the American market in the near term.
In 2019, the Turflynx F315 mower was around 125,000 Euros ($143,000). With further development and inflation, if that style of mower was released in 2022 it could be priced in the $200,000 range, maybe more. That sticker price may shock a lot of superintendents. However, the benefits of this technology may prove worthy of the expense for certain areas of the country. Let’s look at the general benefits and challenges that come with utilizing autonomous mowers on a golf course so we can better understand the calculus each facility will face as they decide whether to invest in this technology now, or in the future.
As we move into the benefits and challenges of these machines, it is important to make a distinction. I’ve referenced two completely different styles of autonomous mowers. The small mowers are rotary-style with a plastic disk that is outfitted with as few as three razor-blade cutting units. They weigh anywhere from 30-150 pounds. I’ll refer to these mowers as “rotary.” Based on the machine concepts and videos shared to date, Toro and John Deere will eventually be offering autonomous versions of the traditional fairway reel mowers. These machines will probably weigh just as much or more than your standard triplex or fairway unit. I’ll refer to them as “reel” mowers.
The fundamental rationale for using autonomous mowers is to save on labor and all of the machines described in this article offer that benefit. Rotary mowers can be programmed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Battery type and configuration can vary between models but generally, if the mower is running at peak capacity, it can cut grass for about 16-18 hours each day with multiple charging cycles mixed in between. This is important because the cutting width is only around 10 inches, so it takes time and multiple units to mow large areas. It is reported that one of these mowers can mow close to 1.25 acres each day.
Autonomous rotary mowers require very little supervision. Once installed within their respective boundaries they will only stop working when they return to their charging station or send an alarm to the user interface. The average lifespan of the mower blades is anywhere from three days to two weeks depending on turf conditions. Tschimperle at WINSTONgolf said that it takes two to three hours to replace the blades on all 24 of their machines. He also reported that they have saved over 80% in annual fairway maintenance costs by using the Automowers. Most of these savings are in labor, fuel, parts and service.
Reel mower range and productivity is still unknown. The Turflynx all-electric machine was able to mow for seven hours before needing a charge in 2019. At that time, charging took two hours. Since this was a triplex unit, productivity for a single charge was 12-15 acres depending on terrain. If Toro and John Deere decide to offer this style of mower in an all-electric model, expect similar or better productivity than the original Turflynx machine. If traditional engines or hybrid machines are used, range and productivity will be much greater.
Should the style of autonomous greens mower that Cub Cadet was working on come back, it could still be a nice labor “redistributor.” That mower required a chaperone to escort it to each green, unload it and send it on its way. However, while the machine was mowing, the chaperone could be cutting cups, raking bunkers, fixing ball marks or performing any other tasks until the mower was ready to be loaded up and delivered to the next green.
There is another interesting benefit specifically with the small rotary mowers. If they’re running all day every day, the turf within their boundaries has always been recently cut. Superintendents that have used autonomous mowers extensively have been surprised by the consistent playing conditions produced with these small rotary machines. The turf health benefits of autonomous mowers are still being studied, but it is reasonable to expect lower disease pressure due to a reduced leaf wetness period and fewer earthworm cast issues.
One major hurdle with autonomous mowers will be the sticker shock. With price tags ranging from $6,000 to over $200,000 for different mower options, varying levels of productivity, and a range of potential features, it is hard to come up with a widely applicable cost-benefit analysis. If the mower is all-electric, substantial fuel savings will be part of the equation as well as the value of zero emissions. Redirecting labor to other maintenance tasks can mean those one or two open positions may be less urgent to fill than they used to be. Regardless, each facility wanting to incorporate autonomous mowers into their maintenance operation will have to come up with their own cost-benefit analysis, and it could be a moving target depending on market conditions.
Another challenge associated more with the rotary-style mowers is quality of cut. Even with regular blade changes, the quality of cut on the rotary mowers may not be comparable to a well-adjusted reel mower. Each superintendent will have to determine whether the quality of cut meets the standards at their facility.
Designating where autonomous mowers drive and mow has typically been determined by a boundary wire, which can be a barrier to entry for many courses. Installing a ground wire is a substantial expense and creates challenges when aerating, trenching or repairing irrigation issues. However, a few of the rotary mower companies now offer mowers that utilize real-time kinematic (RTK) base station guidance which eliminates the need for a ground wire to delineate mowing areas. In the absence of a ground wire, RTK is currently the only GPS technology that will provide the level of precision required for accurate mowing and cleanup passes every time. All indications are that commercial golf course mowers are going to come standard with RTK technology in the future, which will be essential for widespread adoption.
Maintenance on these machines will range from very simple to extremely complex. For the rotary mowers, ease of maintenance is a benefit because they require little more than regularly changing blades and the plastic disk that holds them. However, the reel mowers will be much more complex. Numerous sensors, onboard computers, Lidar, radar, sonar and cameras will all be part of the autonomous reel mower platform. How these get serviced and repaired is still an unknown. Will there be special training required for a mechanic to work on these machines? Will dealers be the only ones allowed to service these high-tech components?
This discussion naturally leads to the biggest challenge for autonomous mowers – liability concerns. Imagine a scenario where property damage or bodily injury happens when an unmanned mower is involved. Who is responsible for that accident? If there is no operator on the machine, is the company that sold you the technology now at fault? Or is it the course who purchased this technology? Or is it the mechanic who last worked on the safety feature that failed? The automotive industry is trying to wade through these same issues as they work to introduce autonomous vehicles to the masses. It is reasonable to assume that autonomous golf course machines will fall in step with whatever liability and insurability regulations the automotive industry adopts. Until that time, this is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome for the major turf equipment manufacturers.
Technological advances in the autonomous world are rapid. It seems like there are new capabilities every month. New companies continue to jump into the market and drive competition and innovation.
In the rotary market, the United States will see a limited launch of the Husqvarna CEORA Automower in 2022. Anticipate a full launch in 2023. This mower will have a drive unit and a detachable cutting deck. There will be three decks with different height-of-cut capabilities. The fairway cutting deck will reportedly cut as low as 0.25 inch and as high as 1.75 inch. The other decks will have height-of-cut ranges higher than this. Programmable cutting areas will allow the user to have the same machine cut different areas at different heights of cut without human intervention. No ground wire will be necessary for these RTK-guided units. Productivity will be around 5-6 acres per day if the machine is running 24/7. Typical charging time is around four hours for eight hours of mowing. Batteries are expected to last five to seven years. The price point on this type of machine will be in the $30,000 range.
This style of autonomous mower will likely not be the only one to hit the U.S. market in the next few years. Companies like Echo and Stihl already have a presence in the autonomous home lawn mower market but will look to expand into commercial and possibly golf applications in the near future.
For reel mowers, the future is a bit more uncertain. Major golf equipment manufacturers like Toro and John Deere have been working on autonomous mower concepts and prototypes for many years now. Both companies displayed their latest concepts at the recent GCSAA Conference in San Diego. The Toro version was a hybrid triplex while the John Deere unit was a conventional diesel-powered, five-reel fairway mower. Both units were loaded with sensors, cameras and onboard computers. Both also had a seat and steering wheel, which is significant because it will allow the mowers to be controlled by humans when necessary. Company representatives were cautiously optimistic and the plan is to extensively test them in the field this year. No timetable was given for a potential commercial launch from either company.
As previously mentioned, Turftroniq has an aftermarket kit that can make a normal fairway mower partially or fully autonomous. As their distributor network and support expands to the United States, this could be a viable option sooner rather than later.
With all these autonomous mowing options swirling about, and the ongoing labor challenges affecting golf courses everywhere, the mass adoption and acceptance of this technology seems inevitable. As regulatory bodies finalize safety, liability and insurability issues with an autonomous platform, you’re likely to see a groundswell of new machines hitting the U.S. commercial, sports field and golf markets.
As we consider what a golf course maintenance operation could look like with autonomous mowers continuously mowing large portions of the course, a thought comes to mind. What happens to those employees whose main role has been to sit on a machine and mow for hours every day? Will they want to do a different job on the course? Will they be able to do a different job on the course? Will this reduce the number of workers on golf courses, or will autonomous mowers simply help to fill positions that are already open? In a labor-challenged market, it is hard to think there could be many drawbacks to the concept of robots mowing grass for us. However, if recent conversations on this topic are a harbinger of things to come, there will be no shortage of strong opinions on the impending rise of the machines.
Cory Isom is an agronomist in the West Region who still enjoys sitting on a mower.
Special thanks to Jordan Tschimperle for his contributions to this article.
Learn more about how autonomous mowers are performing on golf courses in our conversation with Bjarni Hannesson, course manager at Ness Golf Club in Iceland, and Erwan Le Cocq, head greenkeeper and robot technology specialist from WINSTONgolf in Germany.