Project Title: DESIGN AND

FABRICATION OF A SOLAR POWERED

AUTOMATED GRASS CUTTER
SUPERVISOR: Mr. MUGALA GEORGE

STUDENT DETAILS:
NAME: SIN PROGRAMME
PAUL CHOMBA 19136369 MECHATRONICS
PATRICK MULABANYA 19142114 MECHATRONICS
ELISHA MULENGA 19140304 MECHATRONICS
HEZRON PHIRI 19143286 MECHATRONICS
MWIZA LUHANGA 19141257 MECHATRONICS
1.0 INTRODUCTION/SYNOPSIS/BACKGROUND
⮚ Households all over the world beautify their residence through lawns and
these lawns are maintained by mowing machines which use either fuel or
electricity supplied to homes for their power.
⮚ However with the coming of load shedding and abrupt power cuts, mowing
of lawns can not be done at one’s convenience.
⮚ Pollution form burning of fuels forever remains a concern to the
environment, and the fight against global warming is unaided due to this fact.
⮚ Developing a solar powered self navigated grass cutter could help alleviate
the problems created and faced by the other types of grass cutters
⮚ It cuts grass at high RPM, Detects obstacles, Requires no human interaction
and Reduces carbon footprint
 1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT
The automated grass cutter was first developed To overcome certain
challenges faced by other Grass cutters these being;
⮚ Noisy and vibrations
⮚ regular mechanical maintenance
⮚ constant need of power supply
⮚ Labor intensive
⮚ Time consumption
The automated grass cutter could alleviate
all these problems and could penetrate the man tired from mowing lawn
market with its economical relevance and ergonomic design.
 1.2 MOTIVATION/ JUSTIFICATION

⮚Lawn mowers are highly dependent on fuels and power supplied from homes
⮚The automated designs need human supervision to control direction of mowing
and are not obstacle sensitive
⮚And mowing of lawns especially huge lawns could be very tiresome.
⮚Therefore this project comes in as an aid to improve the automated grass cutter
by making it self navigated and solar powered.
⮚This will help in aiding maintenance workers and aiding owners of industrial
lawns from being dependent on fuels and power supply from mainstream lines.
1.3 AIM
⮚To, design, fabricate and assemble a fully automated solar
powered grass cutting machine
 1.4 OBJECTIVES
 Develop a mathematical model for an automatic grass cutter
 Design of a mechanical CAD model of the cutter using Solid Works
 Develop and simulate a code to a micro-controller for the purpose of obstacle
detection and navigation Arduino IDE.
 Design a power supply and electronic circuit control system using proteus
 Development of navigation and obstacle avoidance algorithm for the grass
cutter.
1.5 PROJECT SCOPE

➢ In this project a mathematical model will be developed for the grass cutter
and further, design a controller for it.
➢ Design of a mechanical model using solid works. Thus investing the
prototype material properties such as shear stress and bending moments.
➢ Dimensions set for prototypes chassis is 46cm length and 30cm width.
➢ The engine shaft to move the wheels is set to have speed of 100RPM
➢ In terms of the power system, a solar panel and battery will be used, with
the following specifications; 20watts solar panel with a 12V 7Ah DC
battery.
➢ A solar charge controller with voltage 12V and current 10A
➢ The DC motor that will be cutting the grass will have a maximum of
3000rpm putting out a maximum power output of 0.57 horsepower.
1.5 PROJECT SCOPE
➢ Plastic blade will be used for grass trimming
➢ The blade motor speed desired is 3000RPM
➢ Construction of a code for navigation and obstacle avoidance and implementation on the
prototype.
➢ The microcontroller to be used for the navigation is Arduino (full kit).
➢ The size of the microcontroller will entirely depend on the size of the code developed
➢ Validation of prototype.
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

Lawn mowers, designed by Edwin Beard have been in existence since the
1800s.
P. Amrutesh, B. Sagar and B. Venu: Designed a simple solar grass cutter
that is portable and easy to operate. In their design, an alternator for
recharging the D. C. battery that powers the electric motor was developed.
The blades of the system are driven by multiple pulleys connected to the
motor. Overall, it is a cordless solar power mower with 88.51% cutting
efficiency
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

Vicky Jain, Sagar Patil, Prashant Bagane, Prof. Mrs. S .S. Patil
reviewed and evaluated three (3) different types (solar, electric and
gasoline) of lawnmower and concluded that solar powered lawnmower has
over 90% cutting efficiency, and produces no air pollution or noise as
compare to internal combustion engine lawnmowers. They also concluded
that the direction of sunlight falling on the solar panel can vary how the
system is charge
 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

Emest L. Hall : Another example of an autonomous lawn cutting system is called the Weed
Eater developed by the Weed Eater Corporation. The system is a solar powered emission free
mower that harnesses enough power to operate itself. The robot is equipped with 34 iridescent
solar cells embedded on top of the systems platform and has the capability of handling
properties up to 13,500 sq-ft. The system operates on the same principle as the Lawn Ranger
except it uses a cable beneath the surface of a person's lawn. The mower uses this wire along
with its sensors to allow the robot to maneuver around while keeping the system on track. The
mower will continue to operate as long as the mower has energy from the sun. The robot is.
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
equipped with a flexible bumper that when activated backs the mower up
and continues the robot on a different path. It has the advantage of cutting
grass in the form of a mulch so that the use of a grass catcher or raking is
not required
3.0 METHODOLOGY
Design a Design of
use of mechanical power
Simulink to Design and
CAD for supply and
develop simulate
the grass spped
mathematical controller
cutter using control
model for grass
solid motor
cutter.
worksmode using
l proteus

Design of drive
Fabrication of Design of navigation
Validation mechanism and sensing
prototype of and obstacle
of system required for the
automated avoidance algorithm
prototype grass cutter to execute
grasscutter for the grass cutter
automatic navigation
 4.0 PROJECT PLAN- GANTT CHART
ID TASK START FINISH DURATION
(DAYS)
Literature review 25/01/2023 16/02/2023 22
1

First Presentation 23/02/2023 23/02/2023 0

2 Proposal
Design of Mathematical 03/07/2023 31/07/2023 24
3 Model
Simulation of Model 25/03/2023 25/04/2023 31
4
Design of Algorithm of 27/05/2023 04/07/2023 38
5 system Navigation
Second Presentation 20/06/2023 20/06/2023 0
6 Progress
Acquisition of components 10/06/2023 15/09/2023 127
7 and final report
8 Fabrication of model 15/06/2023 10/09/2023 87

9 Third Presentation 15/09/2023 15/09/2023 0

Final Product
5.0 BUDGET APPROXIMATION
No Items Description Quantity Amount
1 Aduino kit 1 K800
2 Dc gear motor 4 K400
3 Ultrasonic sensor 1 K100
4 Solar panel 1 K200

5 Body 1 K150
6 12V Battery 1 K300
7 Charger controller 1 K200

8 Lcd 1 K100
9 Wheels 65mm 4 K200
10 RPM dc motor 1 K200
11 Plastic blade 1 K200
12 Shipping cost K1000
13 Voltage controller 1 K304

14 Motor drive L293D 1 K120

total k4274