DK179458B1 - Golf Ball Picker and Grass Cutter Robot - Google Patents

Abstract

A golf ball picker and grass cutting combo robot is provided. The robot picks up golf balls and cuts grass in the same operation run. It is advantageous to use for golf clubs. The robot keeps down the time where players on a golf field doing their exercises has to stop their play due to needed maintenance of the golf field.

Description

(¹⁹) DANMARK (10)

(12)

PATENTSKRIFT

Patent- og Varemærkestyrelsen

Int.CI.: A01D 43/00 (2006.01) A63B 47/02 (2006.01)

Ansøgningsnummer: PA 2017 70870

Indleveringsdato: 2017-11-17

Løbedag: 2017-11-17

Aim. tilgængelig: 2018-09-04

Patentets meddelelse bkg. og publiceret den: 2018-11-05

Prioritet:

2017-03-03 DK PA 2017 70153

Patenthaver:

Conpleks Holding ApS, Fælledvej 17, 7600 Struer, Danmark

Opfinder:

Thomas Hedegaard, Skt. Olai Bakke 17A, 7600 Struer, Danmark

Hans E. B. Knutsson, Pilgårdvej 32, 7620 Lemvig, Danmark

Marian Sorin Adam, Struergårdvej 3,7600 Struer, Danmark

Fuldmægtig:

PATENT NORD ApS, Kjeldgaardsparken 31,9300 Sæby, Danmark

Titel: Golf Ball Picker and Grass Cutter Robot

Fremdragne publikationer:

WO 0074466 A1

WO 0078410A1

KR 101219495 B1

WO 2016178616 A1

Sammendrag:

A golf ball picker and grass cutting combo robot is provided. The robot picks up golf balls and cuts grass in the same operation run. It is advantageous to use for golf clubs. The robot keeps down the time where players on a golf field doing their exercises has to stop their play due to needed maintenance of the golf field.

Fortsættes...

FiG. 1

Golf Ball Picker and Grass Cutter Robot

The present invention relates to an autonomous motorised mobile robot for maintenance of golf courses.

On the golf clubs, specially designated areas for learning/exercising the golf ball hitting (i.e. driving range) exist. In such places, several golf players are exercising at the same time requiring availability of a high amount of balls for practice. In order to satisfy the need for so many golf balls in a relatively short time, two possible solutions exist:

1. enough stock of golf balls that the exercising golfers are not suffering from shortage in golf balls supply

2. quick collection, cleaning, and making again available a smaller amount of golf balls.

In both cases the balls must be collected from the field, eventually. In the first scenario, the ball collection is delayed until no people exercises. Moreover, the golf club must invest an important amount of money to ensure enough golf balls for the case when running at full capacity in terms of the number of golf players exercising at the same time.

The second scenario has the advantage of optimizing the number of balls the golf club must buy. However, this cost saving implies that the exercising must be stopped from time to time in order to collect the balls - collecting the balls when exercising is ongoing is too dangerous.

An autonomous system for maintenance of grounds for practising a play is disclosed in US 2005/0055142 A1 ’’TURF IMAGE MARKER” from March 10th 2005. It describes an autonomous ground maintenance vehicle equipped with a sport field image marker which is able to perform combined grass cutting and painting of surfaces. It applies position means e.g. to define the position of a vehicle carrying a system for marking images and a system for grass cutting. It follows a trajectory defined by the position of the vehicle and the position of a mark to be paint on the ground by sending signals to two motors one on each wheel.

US2010250024 A1,TULLY AUTONOMOUS OR REMOTELY OPERATED GOLF BALL PICKING SYSTEM” from 30 September 2010 (WO 2009/022929 A2 from February 19th 2009), describes a motorized system with electric traction with computer vision for collecting golf balls. It comprises a base on two wheel each attached to its respective motor and a trailer with a container for collected golf balls. A computer system on top of the base processes input from sensors and video camera images and determines upon detection of a golf ball how much power to send to each motor on each wheel to drive the system along a predetermined trajectory in order to get to the position of the golf ball. Having reached the position, the system picks up the golf ball. When the trailer is fully loaded with golf balls the system drives to a dropping station and unloads the golf balls.

EP 2 343 106 A2,’’Method, system and apparatus for the automatic collection and delivery of spherical game elements” from July 13th 2011, describes also a vision-based system for automatic collection of balls. Although the field of the invention is for collecting tennis balls and delivering to a player, the system is also usable for other spherical game elements such as golf balls. It uses image acquisition means and analysis of the images to find the balls.

KR101219495BB1 discloses a mobile robot for grass cutting and weed removing comprising a picking module for collection of golf balls, a golf ball collection bay for storage of the balls. The robot further comprising a grasscutter module, the picking module configured to pick-up the golf balls from the grass area prior to the grass-cutter module cutting the grass. The sensor signals measure the distance from the robot to obstacles like golf balls applying ultrasonic sensors.

W00078410 A1 describes another robot for picking up objects. The robot comprises a module for collecting e.g. golf balls, however, the system for following a trajectory is based on a measurement of a distance from the robot to a wire around the green grass area where golf balls are to be collected.

The documents of prior art describe different mobile systems for one or two tasks for maintenance of a grass playing area.

Thus, the objective problem of the present invention is to provide an autonomous system which performs two or more of the main tasks of maintenance of golf playing grass areas including grass-cutting and golf ball picking in a more efficient way than the autonomous systems of prior art minimising the time the play has to be stopped.

Summary of the invention.

The problem is solved by an automated mobile robot according to claim 1, characterized in that the combo robot has at least three wheels and as guiding means orientation and position means comprising a GPS/GNSS (14), a controller with an IMU/AHRS (7), and encoders placed on two or more wheels (2 and 3) to count the travelled distance of a predefined route.

Different embodiments of the automated mobile robot are claimed in claim 2 to 6.

In an embodiment, according to claim 2 the combo robot has a picker module which is liftable.

In another embodiment, according to claim 3 the combo robot has a picker module comprising blades along a transverse axis of the combo robot to grab items.

In another embodiment, the combo robot is self-propelled, see claim 4.

In a yet other embodiment the controller for guiding the mobile robot along a pre-defined route may be configured to perform adaptive control, claim 5, and/or the robot may be remotely supervised and controlled, claim 6.

The surface where practicing of golf players takes place needs turf maintenance. Therefore, in addition to the need to collect golf balls, the grass length is maintained using a grass-cutter. Systems of prior art require two runs to maintain the practicing area or rely on a too poor technique to drive the robot. This means that the practicing area is unavailable for practicing for even longer.

The present invention addresses all the problems of maintaining a golf playing area by, in addition to provide a combined golf balls picking and the grass trimming in one machine, applying selected advanced technology to drive the robot along a predefined route. The automated golf ball-picking robot is able to continuously collect the golf balls, even when the players are exercising, and deliver the collected balls to a collection, cleaning and dispensing station while being able to trim the grass in the same run.

The above robot is better suited to golf clubs due to much higher capacity at a competitive cost level. As the robot is using GNSS instead of computer vision it is also much less demanding in terms of computing power, whereby a low power processor can be used.

The robot does not require a detection of the golf ball prior to picking it up as the whole turf area is cleaned for golf balls in the same run by the same robot prior to the grass-cut along a predetermined route. The golf ballpicking robot is adapted to pick up items (balls) in front of the grass-cutting module.

In addition to be able to drive on grass, the automated motorised robot is also able to drive on a multitude of other surfaces including asphalt, concrete, gravel, etc.

In order that the invention may be well understood, some non-limiting examples will now be described with reference to the drawings in which:

Fig. 1 shows a possible implementation of a Golf Ball Picker and Grass Cutting Combo Robot according to the invention - top view.

Fig. 2 shows the Golf Ball Picker and Grass Cutting Combo Robot of Fig. 1 bottom view.

The main parts of the robot as depicted in Fig. 1 and 2 are:

I - caster wheel

2, 3 - driving wheels (containing encoders)

- golf balls picker module

5, 6 - motors

- controller (containing an IMU/AHRS)

- golf balls collection bay

- golf balls offloading gate

- grass-cutting module

II - grass-cutting blade

- golf balls offloading gate actuator

- golf balls offloading gate actuating cable

14-GPS/GNSS

Referring to Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 a Golf Ball Picker and Grass Cutting Combo Robot according to the invention comprises a golf balls picker module (4) attached to a robot able to autonomously pick up e.g. golf balls from a golf field. The picker module (4) is arranged in the front defined by the main driving direction and has grabbing means, and in the back a grass-cutting module (10).

The combo robot of Fig. 1 and 2 has two wheels (2 and 3) driven by two motors (5 and 6) controlled by a controller (7). A caster wheel (1) may be present to ensure the stability of the combo robot. It permits a differentially driven control of the combo robot. A combo robot on wheels has at least three wheels in total.

The wheels (2 and 3) contain encoders used by the controller (7) to help estimating the position and the speed of the combo robot.

The guidance means of a combo robot comprise e.g. a global navigation satellite system (GPS/GNSS) (14) to follow a predefined route on e.g. a golf field.

The example robot further includes, for position estimation of the example combo robot above, a GPS/GNSS (14) system together with an IMU/AHRS installed in the controller (7) (not shown in the figures), and for providing orientation and position information the example robot includes encoders for counting a travelled distance. Other means includes IMU/AHRS for measurement of the inclination/angles to the ground, camera for detection of obstacles on the ground e.g. a golf club, and LIDAR for measurement of distance to obstacles. Other possible methods, which may be applied, are radar, optical/electhcal/ultrasound triangulation, RFID, etc. The position and orientation information are used to navigate the combo robot along a predefined route.

The balls are collected in the collection bay (8), and are offloaded by opening the offloading gate (9). Opening the offloading gate (9) is done by a gate actuator (12) through the golf balls offloading gate actuating cable (13).

The balls collecting module (4) may be adapted to be lifted from the ground when needed, e.g., when turning or when driving to and from the ball unloading station or to and from a charging station (in case of an electrically driven machine).

The grass-cutting module (10) comprises one or more grass-cutting blades (11).

The picker module (4) comprises collection means, such as a series of circular blades distributed evenly along a transverse common axis at a distance smaller than the diameter of the collected item.

Furthermore, a combo robot may be self-propelled.

An embodiment of the invention may have the following characteristics and advantages or capabilities:

1. GNSS-controlled combo robot that trims the turf and collects golf balls

2. Autonomous driving in the field based on a pre-defined route

3. Autonomously collect balls on a pre-defined area

4. Autonomously trim the grass in a pre-defined area

5. Sweet-spot ball collecting automatically or after being manually driven to the centre of the area

6. Learning the area to clean

7. Able to provide statistics about the amount of collected balls per square meter

8. Balls number communication between the robot and the offloading station

9. Scheduled operation (like automatically starting to work during the night)

10. Storage of balls in a carried-on container with a quick-release mechanism for offloading the balls

11. Grass cutting unit that makes possible combined golf balls collection and grass cutting

12. Remotely supervised and controlled with a computer/tablet/smartphone

13. Automatically returning for charging and for balls offload

14. Obstacle detection and avoidance

15. Access to a Charging station

16. Access to a Ball collecting and cleaning station

Claims (6)

A mobile ground maintenance robot comprising a collection module (4) for collecting items, such as golf balls, a golf ball collection room (8) for storing the items, and guiding means for guiding the robot along a predetermined route, the robot further comprising a lawn mower module (10), the collecting module (4) is arranged to collect the items from the ground, before the lawnmower module (10) mows the grass on the ground, characterized in that the guiding means are orientation and positioning means, and in that the robot further comprises at least three wheels (1, 2 and 3), optionally one is a swivel wheel (1), and orientation and positioning means comprising a GPS / GNSS (14), a controller with an IMU / AHRS (7), and encoders located on two or more wheels (2). and 3) to count the distance traveled on the route. A mobile robot for maintenance of grounds according to claim 1 in which the collection module (4) is liftable from the ground. A mobile ground maintenance robot according to any one of claims 1 to 2 in which the collection module (4) comprises one or more blades, such as a series of circular blades distributed evenly along a transverse common axis with a distance less than the diameter of the item, arranged to grab the items during collection on the site and collect the items. A mobile ground maintenance robot according to any one of claims 1 to 3 in which the robot is self-propelled. A mobile ground maintenance robot according to claim 4 in which the controller (7) is configured to perform adaptive control. 5 A mobile ground maintenance robot according to any one of claims 1 to 5 in which the robot is arranged to be remotely monitored and controlled by a computer / tablet / smartphone.