US 11,687,093 B2
Autonomous mower navigation system and method
Christopher J. Churavy, Lakewood, OH (US); and Edward J. Blanchard, Indianapolis, IN (US)
Assigned to MTD PRODUCTS INC, Valley City, OH (US)
Filed by MTD Products Inc, Valley City, OH (US)
Filed on Jun. 26, 2020, as Appl. No. 16/912,842.
Application 16/912,842 is a continuation of application No. 15/588,025, filed on May 5, 2017, granted, now 10,698,417.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/332,534, filed on May 6, 2016.
Prior Publication US 2020/0326725 A1, Oct. 15, 2020
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G05D 1/02 (2020.01); A01D 34/00 (2006.01); H03M 13/15 (2006.01); A01D 101/00 (2006.01)
CPC G05D 1/0276 (2013.01) [A01D 34/008 (2013.01); G05D 1/0265 (2013.01); H03M 13/156 (2013.01); A01D 2101/00 (2013.01); G05D 2201/0208 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer implemented method for autonomous mower navigation, comprising:
receiving a return-to-zero encoded signal including a neutral condition between bits and comprising at least one pseudo-random sequence, wherein the neutral condition comprises a value halfway between a condition representing a 1 bit and a condition representing a 0 bit;
transforming the received signal to a non-return-to-zero phase-shift keyed representation, wherein the non-return-to-zero phase-shift keyed representation comprises a binary code in which binary 0's are represented by a negative voltage and binary l's are represented by a positive voltage, and wherein the non-return-to-zero phase-shift keyed representation does not include a neutral condition;
digitally sampling the non-return-to-zero signal representation; and
determining a location of the autonomous mower relative to a defined work area based on an evaluation of the digitally sampled non-return-to-zero signal representation.