Honda's prototype riding electric lawn mower can learn from humans and then mow automatically

Robotic lawn mowers have been around for years, but you probably haven't seen Honda's new twist on the game. The Honda Automatic Work Mower (AWM) is an all-electric, zero-turn riding lawn mower. Under normal operation, it can be operated by a human like any other riding lawn mower. In manual mode, the machine learns the mowing routes and patterns used by the operator, so when switched to automatic mode, it can reproduce the routes and patterns, freeing up the person to work on other tasks.

Honda says the AWM is designed for lawn care and landscaping companies to help address labor shortages and achieve sustainability goals. The mower is able to learn the entire job site, and operators can create different route maps for multiple locations and save them to a secure cloud server.

Honda's lawn mowers use GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) for location recognition and come with traction control to maintain a straight line on hills and rough terrain. Omnidirectional sensing and radar and lidar sensors aid in obstacle detection, and a speed-linked blade motor controller automatically reduces blade rotation at low speeds to save battery life. Under high load, AWM can slow down its travel speed to avoid clogging the machine or cutting the grass incompletely.

Earlier this year, Honda conducted field tests with a top U.S. landscaping company and plans to launch a pilot program starting in 2024 for other companies to participate.