Description:Field of Invention
The present invention is appropriate to develop a solar based autonomous system for Grass Cutting to maintain the smart gardening.
Objective of the Invention
Design and implement a pollution free, environment friendly, energy efficient hardware with minimum implementation and maintenance cost, which can work manually and automatically based on the requirements. This system helps to reduce the human intervention to maintain the garden and can control the operation of the system remotely.
Background of the Invention
The grass cutters we use today works on non-renewable energy sources that are fuels. As the fuel costs are increasing day-by-day it becomes difficult to maintain a grass cutter which works on fuels and human effort is also required to operate the machine. Intervention of man power required more cost. Also for lawn mower which work on electricity requires lengthy wires connected from mower to other end. It is very difficult to use and sometimes it is dangerous to human life also. Power down may be a major problem in this type of grass cutters. Sometimes work is delayed or stopped due to lagging of electricity. (Athina & et al., [2021], Materials Science and Engineering, 1057, p 1-15) designed a Solar Grass Cutter Using Embedded Platform. This work consists of solar panel so that the battery is charged continuously at day time and use as per their requirement.
Solar energy is a renewable source of energy and it is generated and stored in batteries with less cost. (Karthick R & et al., [2016], international journal of research culture society, 2, p 291-293) described about the fabrication of solar operated lawn mower. Different sensors are used to detect the objects in lawn while moving. Main objective is that the user can specify the area that is to be mown and also the size of the grass as required using the keypad.
Some types of grass cutter machines work in fuels, which produce harmful gases and it’s polluted the air. Hence to avoid emission of harmful gases and environmental pollution need to implement a renewable mower system. Such solar based mower systems replace the requirements of fuels/ electricity and ultimately reduce the cost. (Srishti Jain et al.,[2015], International Journal of Trend in Research and Development, 2, p 294- 297). This work deals about solar power based robotic lawn mower. This does not require any perimeter wires to keep the robot in the lawn and also requires less human effort. It consists of sensors to avoid obstacles and it has solar panel and lead acid rechargeable battery. It does not overcharge because of less output from solar panel.
Another important constrain in the gross cutter is requirements of human intervention. Nowadays getting man power is difficult and labour charge is more. Hence need to automate such system by implementing programming. Microcontrollers are programmable and hence used to control the operation of mower system.
Description of Prior Art
A battery-operated vehicles is described that includes a framework supporting a first drive wheel and a second drive wheel, a battery pack, a first electric drive wheel motor consistent to the first drive wheel and second electric drive wheel motor interconnected to the second drive wheel (US20190059227A1). A lawn mower robot includes an inner body provided with casters and wheels for moving, a plurality of blades rotatable provided on a bottom surface of the inner body to cut grass, a drive motor mounted on the wheels respectively (US11096325B2). It has at least one electric engines and one drive wheel. Electric engines are attached with drive wheels and grass cutter unit (RU2103860C1). An self-governing mobile lawn mower robot having a tool for mowing a lawn, wherein height of the cutting tool is adjustable, includes the different steps like receiving a prediction of an environmental condition describing parameter, and without human intervention adjusting the cutting height of the cutting tool as a function of the received prediction (US20180352730A1). The intelligent management and control system, which comprises a tea garden module, a processing factory module, a circulation module and an early warning and safety module. The tea garden module includes tea garden basic information unit, real-time monitoring data unit, tea garden material management unit and tea garden personnel management unit etc,. (AU2020103580A4).
Summary of the Invention
The invented system has to use sunlight as source for charging the mower. As sunlight is primary source of energy for earth and it is also a renewable energy. Rechargeable battery is used to supply power to all components and it is charged by sunlight through solar panel. The mower works in two modes they are automated mode & manual mode. In the automatic mode no human interaction is required, the mower uses IR sensor to detect the objects and change the direction of the mower. Based on the program movements of the vehicle will be controlled and the level of the plant needs to clean. In manual mode human control the mower from our phone through Bluetooth. So in this mode less human interaction is required that is we need to control it from phone. The major advantages of the invented system are no harmful emissions, less human intervention, no waste of renewable sources, Compact in size, portable and Low maintenance cost.
Detailed Description of the Invention
Microcontroller is programmed to move the vehicles in all direction based on the voice or text comment. Also it can be operated from remote places by mobile app is again sophisticated the work. This mower can be operated in two modes. In automatic mode no human interaction is required as IR sensor detects the objects and changes the direction of the mower and if the user is not satisfied then he can change the mode into manual mode and control the mower from our mobile through Bluetooth so that the work can be completed. A LCD display is also used to display the status of the mower. Operating this mower is simple and it can be moved from one place to another place easily. The solar panel charges the battery during the day time when sun light is available. The battery then supplies the power to all the components. One motor driver controls the two wheels of the mower and the other motor driver controls the grass cutting motor. The sensor, LCD, motor driver, Bluetooth module is connected to microcontroller.
The microcontroller plays the major role in the lawn mower it controls the movement of the lawn mower and it takes the decision in which direction the lawn mower should move. The lawn mower consists of three wheels, two wheels are attached to the two dc motors each and they are placed at the back of the lawn mower that is one at right side and one at left side of the lawn mower. At the front side of the mower, we place an auto movable wheel at the centre of the lawn mower. The movement of this wheel depends upon the two wheels at the back side. If the right wheel dc motor is on then the mower moves right direction and if the left wheel dc motor is on then the mower moves in right direction. The third wheel at front side centre movement depends on the back side two wheels.
There are two L293D motor drivers which drives the DC motors. One motor driver can be able to control two DC motors. It has three dc motors in the lawn mower. One motor driver controls the two dc motors which are kept at back side of the mower as this motor driver can run two wheels dc motors in clockwise and anti clockwise direction. Another motor driver is used to control the grass cutting dc motor in which a blade is attached to the dc motor and the rotation of the blade can cut the grass. Microcontroller is not accomplished to run the dc motors, hence here used these motor drivers to run the dc motors. The motor driver amplifies the current so it can run the motors. The two motor drivers are connected to the micro controller as the microcontroller controls the motor driver and the motor driver controls the motors. When the two DC motors placed at back side of mower are turned on by the microcontroller through motor driver then the mower moves forward direction, when the right motor is on then it moves left direction, when left motor is on it moves right direction, when two are off then the mower stops.
The solar converts the sunlight into power by photovoltaic effect. The generated power is stored in the rechargeable battery. Now from the battery the power is supplied to “Vcc” of microcontroller with regulator and to the other components. All the components are placed below the solar panel, so that the sensitive components may not damage due to the sunlight. The IR obstacle sensor and the Bluetooth module are connected to the microcontroller. The IR sensor is kept at the front side of the lawn mower and the Bluetooth module is kept below the solar panel in order to protect from sunlight. Bluetooth should be on throughout the operation of the lawn mower and it should be connected to our phone. The 16*2 LCD is connected to the micro controller and the status of the lawn mower is displayed on the LCD.
Download the mobile app Bluetooth terminal hc-05 from play store. Bluetooth module should be turned on and connect to our phone. Now from the mobile phone in the app connect hc-05 Bluetooth module and type the command “F” then the IR sensor starts detecting the obstacles and the lawn mower will move in forward direction. If there is no object detected by the IR sensor then the vehicle moves straight. If object is detected then IR sensor monitors it and the microcontroller then turns the vehicle right until the object is not detected.
In the manual mode there are some commands to be given from the mobile. Type the instruction ‘R’ in the app to move the lawn mower in backward direction, ‘W’ to move right, ‘L’ to move left, ‘O’ to rotate right and ‘U’ to rotate in left direction and ‘S’ to stop. In addition to this there are commands with numbers when we type this number commands then the grass cutting motor will be turned off and only the vehicle moves.’2’ to move forward,’8’ to move back,’4’ to move left and ‘6’ to move in right direction. The direction of the lawn mower will be displaced on the LCD.
Dual mode lawn mower using solar energy implemented hardware is shown in the figure2. This prototype model shows the overview of the arrangements. By connecting the Bluetooth module hc-05 to the phone in the app and when you type “F” in phone then the mower will be in automatic mode and the direction is changed when the object is detected by the IR sensor. If any obstacles found on the way, it will be indicated by buzzer and change its direction. In manual mode operation, it can work based on the typing commands as described then control of mower is done through our phone. To control Dual mode lawn in manual mode there are pre defined instructions available which controls the direction of lawn mower. The instruction must be typed in app by a person. In the LCD Display we can observe the status of the lawn mower. The major benefits of this systems are no harmful emissions, no waste of renewable sources, compact in size, portable and low maintenance cost.

5 Claims & 2 Figures
Brief Description of Drawings
In the figure which is illustrate exemplary embodiment of the invented invention.
Figure 1: Block diagram of Automatic Solar Based Grass Cutter
Figure2: Implemented hardware for Automatic Solar Based Grass Cutter , Claims:The scope of the invention is defined by the following claims:

Claims:
1. Automatic Solar Based Grass Cutter for Smart Gardening including the following system/method comprising the steps of:
a) A microcontroller is a heart of this system which connects the solar panels along with rechargeable battery in port 1 of the microcontroller.
b) IR sensors, Bluetooth modules are interfaced in port 2 of the microcontroller
c) Motor drives and gross cutting motors are interfaced in port 3 of the microcontroller and it controlled by programs. 2x12 LCD display is interfaced with microcontroller with help of port 3.
2. As mentioned in claim 1, IR sensor is mounted in the front end if the hardware which senses the object or obstacle on the way and Bluetooth modules communicates to the microcontroller instantly and the microcontroller make a alert by buzzer connected in the system.
3. According to claim 1, mode selection input is send to motors through the motor control. According to the input, motor is move the mower in specific direction.
4. As per claim 1, solar panels along with rechargeable battery which is connected in port 1 of the microcontroller is automatically track the direction of the sun light by help of LDR and charge the battery.
5. As per claim 1, gross cutting motors connected in the microcontroller port 3. Levels and position of the gross cutting motor is control by pre defined programming. Automatic Solar Based Grass Cutter can cut the plant leafs or branches either in the same level or in different level.