The City of Richmond has employed two tiny helpers for lawn maintenance over the past three years.
But they're not human — they're robots.
The pair started as a pilot project in the summer of 2022.
They mow around 22,000 square feet of lawn at Richmond City Hall in the southeast corner along No. 3 Road.
Each robotic lawn mower has a built-in tracking and security feature that prevents theft, including anti-theft sirens that would sound if the machine was removed from the area it's working in.
Safety features on the machines also stop the blades from moving the moment they are handled.
Using these lawn mowers has prevented approximately 89 kilograms (or 197 pounds) of CO2 emissions per year, according to city spokesperson Clay Adams.
"They are also virtually silent, use little electricity to charge, and enable staff who might otherwise spend time mowing the lawns to be focused on park maintenance elsewhere," he said.
"They are also better for lawn regrowth than conventional mowers because they only cut a little bit every day, which results in no clippings and no extra resources required for regrowth."
Richmond's goal for this pilot project was to look at "the feasibility of using this technology" in other city parks, reads the city's website.
During the trial, the machines were programmed to work Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
When the machine needed charging, it would automatically return to a station on site to charge during its "work hours" as well as at the end of each day.
Richmond's parks team also uses other electric equipment, including two ride-on mowers, walk-behind mowers, string trimmers, leaf blowers and an electric remote control mower for rough and hard-to-access areas.
The remote control mower is controlled by staff from a distance, the "same way a drone is operated," explained Adams.
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