Larnach Castle — one of New Zealand's premier visitor attractions — is getting a Segway Navimow.
A Navimow H3000 model will be keeping the lawns beautifully presented, as visitors explore the unique gardens that surround the Castle and historic outbuildings. These award-winning gardens have been rated by the NZ Gardens Trust a Garden of International Significance.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of visitors to Dunedin enjoy the Castle experience and surrounding grounds. Soon, they'll be catching a peek of Navimow as it relieves some of the workload from the busy team of groundskeepers.
Situated on the picturesque Otago Peninsula, Larnach Castle is on the 'must-see' list of visitors arriving by cruise ship into nearby Port Chalmers. The history of "New Zealand's only (mock) castle" and its builder William Larnach is an absolutely fascinating and quite extraordinary story from early New Zealand.
Larnach Castle also offers luxury accommodation, hosts events such as weddings and conferences, and offers unique dining experiences (the evening dinner is highly recommended). Built in the Gothic Revival style, it is open 365 day of the year.
Navimow's advanced VisionFence AI camera and GNSS (GPS) geo-location systems enable it to safely mow in very complicated environments, such as the gardens found at the castle.
For example, Navimow can operate around ponds without risk of falling in.
VisionFence also enables Navimow to operate in environments where obstacles change from time to time. For example, on the lawn out from the Cafe there are umbrella stands that are moved every two days (so as not to kill the grass), and garden furniture that is brought inside around 4pm each day. VisionFence ensures Navimow avoids yet still mows closely around such items.
Even without the addition of traction spikes Navimow can conquer slopes of 24 degrees.
There are multiple lawns separated by driveways, and Navimow can drive itself from lawn to lawn.
One of the foreseen challenges of installing a robot at a castle built in the 1880s is thick stone walls that absorb radio waves and GNSS signals. Accordingly, the location of the Charging Station needs to be carefully considered.
And one of the unforeseen challenges is....a lack of power points! Those same stone walls make it difficult to install wiring, so power sockets are at a premium. Additionally, asthetics is a key determinator of the location as well.
For Segway New Zealand, this will be our first installation of Navimow in a place where snow sometimes falls in the winter.
