Mach, a US-based manufacturer of autonomy technology for off-road machines, has launched a commercial solar mowing solution for utility-scale solar assets.
Aimed at independent power producers (IPPs), Mach’s system is designed to aid solar project vegetation management, which the company said was one of the largest recurring operations and maintenance costs on a solar site.
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Mach highlighted how mowing between and beneath panel rows is repetitive and labour-intensive, and must be done on a schedule across sites that are often remote and spread across wide territories.
Its autonomy platform is built to integrate into commercial mowing platforms purpose-built for solar sites, giving IPPs a way to maintain sites with fewer operators on the ground.
“Utility-scale solar sites present one of the most demanding operational environments in off-road autonomy—narrow clearances, dense panel shadows, GPS-degraded zones and zero tolerance for infrastructure strikes,” said Colin Hurd, CEO of Mach.
Core features of the Mach platform include:
- Factory-integrated OEM architecture, enabling vehicle manufacturers to bring autonomous commercial mowers to market quickly, without the usual development cycle and capital expense of building an in-house robotics division
- Precision navigation and infrastructure protection, enabling the system to operate reliably through dust, tall grass and sun glare by actively detecting and avoiding tracker posts and other system hardware
- “Centralised fleet orchestration”, enabling a single remote operator to dispatch, monitor and geofence multiple machines across dispersed portfolios
- Dealer-Supported Serviceability: Because the system runs on established commercial OEM platforms, routine mechanical maintenance, blades, and hydraulics are supported through existing nationwide equipment dealer networks, eliminating proprietary hardware bottlenecks.
“By delivering our full-stack autonomy as a Tier-1 partner to commercial equipment OEMs, we provide solar asset owners with the rugged, dealer-supported machinery they already trust, supercharged with driverless capability,” added Hurd. “This ecosystem approach enables solar developers to scale vegetation management across gigawatts while giving equipment manufacturers an immediate, turnkey path to lead the autonomous solar market.”
Mach will present the technology at the RE+ show in Las Vegas later this month.
