Case Study: Vitirover achieves centimeter-level autonomous vegetation control with Trimble GNSS

Trimble GNSS Technology Tapped to Power Autonomous Robot Tractor

Yanmar, a manufacturer of agricultural and industrial equipment, faced the challenge of developing a fully autonomous mower that could operate without wired boundaries or a plugged-in power source. This need was driven by growing bans on toxic herbicides and the requirement to manage vegetation in complex, large-scale environments like vineyards, railways, and solar farms with extreme precision. They partnered with vendor Trimble to integrate a high-precision GNSS solution.

The solution implemented by Trimble centered on the MB-Two high-performance, dual-frequency receiver with an RTK/PPP positioning engine, which provided the centimeter-level accuracy required for the autonomous mower to navigate around thousands of obstacles. This allowed one operator, or "shepherd," to manage up to 50 robots remotely, monitoring their performance and energy consumption in real-time. The results included a highly efficient, herbicide-free vegetation management service that operates in challenging conditions with proven accuracy of 5 cm.

Yanmar