TRAVELS WITH TERRY

Autonomous Rough & Grass Tennis Court Mowing

The storied Philadelphia Cricket Club is using autonomous mowers in the maintained roughs on all three courses and on the great lawn/grass tennis courts. The club initially acquired two Husqvarna Model 435X AWD Mowers to test them out. The club then acquired 22 Husqvarna Model 550 EPOS Wireless Technology Mowers, three Model CEORA Wireless Technology Mowers (the company’s latest version) and one Model 535 AWD Wireless Technology Mower used on the 18-hole Wissahickon and Militia Hill courses and 9-hole St. Martins Course. There are 18 grass tennis courts, with 17 normally used for tennis and one for croquet. All 18 courts are used during tennis tournaments.

Mowing height on the maintained roughs is 2.4 inches and four-tenths of an inch on the great lawn/grass tennis courts. The mowers have electric height adjustment used during excessive heat or rain events controlled by the Fleet App and Husqvarna Automower App on smartphones. The staff does not have to be actively using the apps when units are out mowing.

The 550 EPOS can mow for about three hours after a charge. Depending on the pattern and terrain, they will mow around a half-acre during that stretch. They can mow 2½ acres in a 24-hour period.

The CEORA will mow around three acres of low-mow turf in a 24-hour period. The staff is finding with the CEORAs at Militia Hill and Wissahickon courses they can easily cover six acres in a 12-hour period. The team will continue experimenting with their mowing areas and schedule to learn the maximum number they can get that to. They think eventually they will be able to schedule the CEORA to take care of a 12-to 18-acre area over a 24-to 36-hour period of mowing.

It takes one hour (or a little more) to charge each mower. Units return to their charging stations nearby automatically when they have approximately 20 percent charge remaining. They return mowing automatically where each mower left off.

The Wissahickon course currently has four separate charging locations, with one, three, four and five chargers at each station, respectively. The Militia Hill course has six charging locations, with one, one, two, two, four and four chargers at each station, respectively. The St. Martin course has three charging locations, with one charger for the great lawn/tennis courts area.

Electricity was spliced off the incoming irrigation satellites power lines and they ran power to a small breaker box that has two outlets going back to the newly installed breaker box. This was done so that if there was ever a power problem with the mowers drawing too many amps it would trip the breaker for just the mowers and would hopefully not trip any of the irrigation satellites.

The mowers return to chargers when the battery gets to a certain percentage below 20 percent, meaning it will still allow the mower enough battery to return to the charger. It will then charge for about an hour (or a little longer), which gets it back up to 100 percent, and it will return to where it left off and continue mowing its designated area. Each mower is designated to its specific area and will be the only mower that mows that area.

Last year, Philadelphia Cricket Club had some areas near the clubhouses being mowed every day to keep them perfect. Other areas were mowed every other day or once every three days. During the late fall when the grass was slowing down, they changed schedules to mow every three days or once a week depending on the area.

The mowers will mow everything inside of its boundary line unless a stay-out zone is set up. The Philadelphia Cricket Club team established stay-out zones to keep mowers off fairways and out of bunkers. They also established a few stay-out zones near drains that mowers would get caught on.

All the units mow at night and they take advantage of that to have areas freshly mowed when the members arrive for their first tee time. Mowers have a set schedule of what hours they are mowing. The first year they let most of them mow from midnight to noon so they would mow at night and during the day. Members saw the robotic mowers during the day, but staff also received information on how they mowed at night. The schedule can be set for them to mow from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next day if they do not want members to see them in operation. This would mean the mower would mow its 2½ acres worth of turf over two days instead of one day.

The schedule can be changed at any time in the app, so the mower is going out only in a certain window that they want it to mow. They can't pick the exact time it will mow or charge in that window because that will be determined by the mower’s battery-level status. Wheel brushes are not required when mowing at night or during heavy dew/moisture.

The metal shelves ordered for storage are 72 inches wide by 36 inches deep. The 550 EPOS mowers are about 30 inches long so they could fit three on a shelf. The shelves were purchased from Uline and put together and installed in-house. It took a few staff members one day to put them together. The three shelving units cost about $1,600.

Daniel L. Meersman, chief planning officer and director of grounds and facilities; Robb Moulds, grounds maintenance manager; Shawn Bergey, equipment manager; and Wissahickon course assistant superintendents Ben Rita and Will Reese are all part of a great team at Philadelphia Cricket Club. Keith Foster was the restoration architect at the Wissahickon and St. Martins courses, and Dr. Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry designed the Militia Hill course.