A true labor saver, Exmark’s Turf Tracer with XiQ Technology is an autonomous mower designed for landscape contractors, municipalities and large farms, says Jeremy Tate, autonomous program manager at Exmark.
“It enables customers to do two jobs at once to gain productivity because while the autonomous mower is mowing the larger open areas on a property, the human resource can be used to do the trimming, edging and taking care of the bushes and hedges to add more value,” Tate says.
In other words, this mower enables contractors to do the extra work to clean up a property nicely, rather than simply doing the bare minimum maintenance tasks.
“This product allows them, with the labor resources they already have, to expand their service offering for customers,” Tate says.
Features of the mower include: 
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- The XiQ technology package is an integrated navigation and safety system that leverages GNSS and RTK location technology combined with an ISO-certified radar detection system to identify obstacles and prevent collisions.
- It’s available with a 60-inch full-floating UltraCut Series 4 cutting deck and capable of mowing in autonomous or manual modes.
- The mower includes a 26-hp Kohler EFI ECV749 engine.
- The unit is capable of autonomously cutting 2 acres per hour.
What really stands out, Tate says, is the product’s simplicity. For instance, to autonomously mow an area, the end user pushes a record button on the machine and drives around an area of grass to be mowed autonomously.
“There’s no programming needed, no special skill sets,” Tate says. “You just need to be able to operate a mower, and then the machine remembers those boundaries. Coming back (to a property) week after week simply involves putting the mower into autonomous mode and hitting go.”
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Tate adds that Exmark is working with other manufacturers to set the safety standard for autonomous mowers and is a one-stop shop for service, repair parts, warranty items and more.
The biggest challenge of integrating the mower into an operation, Tate says, is that it’s a change from the norm of how things have always been done.
“It’s understanding the technology's capability and how it best fits into the business,” Tate says. “For me, it's helping customers understand the changes that are needed in their business to take advantage of the technology.”
For example, he says that the product is much easier to scale than people.
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“When you think about cost per acres, it’s about 10 percent less (cost) than a manually controlled ZTR—that’s often a surprise to customers,” Tate says.
Exmark Manufacturing
“We’re excited to be providing solutions to our customers that solve their toughest problems,” Tate says. “This award is a recognition of the product’s potential impact in the industry and Exmark’s role in that. It’s well understood that the No. 1 concern of professional lawn care providers is labor availability and labor costs, and that's really what drove Exmark to invest in this technology and to provide it to the marketplace.”
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