Swedish firm Husqvarna and Massachusetts-based GreenSight are combining their technologies to create an autonomous turf management and mowing system.

This should empower turf managers to heighten the quality of turf care, use fewer natural resources and reduce costs in their overall management practices.

GreenSight’s TurfCloud combined with Husqvarna’s Automower will initially serve large scale outdoor facilities such as golf courses and sports turf facilities. Numerous trials have yielded results that have improved efficiency and reduced labour needs.

Husqvarna, a specialist in outdoor equipment design and manufacturing, pioneers robotic mowing and has changed the way professionals maintain their turf with the iconic Automower and Ceora robotic mowers.

GreenSight specialises in robotics for agriculture and defence and is defining the benefits of daily drone imaging at golf and sports turf facilities with TurfCloud, its cloud-based turf management platform. TurfCloud also allows turfgrass professionals to monitor and manage their turf and their teams proactively.

“Our low noise, emission-free Automower combined with the GreenSight’s suite of digital management tools, sensors and imaging is a revolutionary step forward in turf management for golf courses, sports facilities and other public green spaces,” said Jason Connor, director of commercial robotics at Husqvarna. “Our Epos technology provides unparalleled flexibility and eliminates the need for physical boundary wires, making the Automower a perfect complement to GreenSight.”

James Peverill, GreenSight CEO, added: “Bringing together two leaders in ground and aerial robotics is a natural partnership that has resulted in industry changing turf management. Integrating Husqvarna’s robotic mowers into our TurfCloud golf course management system creates an efficient and effective solution for golf course superintendents and turf managers that makes their jobs easier while improving turf quality and easing staff resource constraints. The new platform brings together all of the turf manager’s drone imagery, sensor data, agronomic tools, labour and robotics planning systems into one revolutionary integrated digital command centre.”

Husqvarna manufactures products and delivers innovations such as anti-vibration and automatic chain-break on chainsaws, as well as robotic mowers. Today, it offers outdoor power products for parks, forests and gardens, including chainsaws, trimmers, ride-on mowers and robotic mowers. The products are sold in more than 100 countries, mainly through servicing dealers.

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, GreenSight is a developer of small, unmanned aircraft, robotics systems, avionics hardware and AI and autonomy software for commercial and defence applications. The company has executed projects and deployed automated robotics with over 400 companies and government agencies since founding in 2015. It has executed over 12,000 remotely operated flights since the system was commercially launched in 2016.