Snow-loading and snow-sweeping robots

Areas near entrances of apartment houses are usually cleaned with snow shovels. The use of ordinary snow cleaning machines in such areas is ineffective, costly and inconvenient due to parked cars and area irregular geometry.

However the described job can be effectively done by a small-sized highly mobile snow-loading robot designed on the basis of SRX1 platform. Its small dimensions allow the robot to easily clean zones accessible by sweeper men only. The robot is fitted with a front mounted snow bucket for effective snow cleaning. Apart from snow removal from even road surfaces the snow bucket allows snow carrying and gathering snow piles over one meter high.

A snow-loading robot is equipped with an electric drive system to ensure close to noiseless running. Even deep in the night it will not disturb sleeping citizens, which makes the robot suitable for 24-hour operation. Regular snow cleaning helps to keep the pathway surfaces clean with less efforts and prevent snow adfreezing that happens when remaining snow gets tramped downed by passers-by.

The use of an electric snow-loading robot is very cost effective. Removal of snow depth of 5 cm in the area of 100 sq. m. takes one hour and requires 3 kW of input power. Recharging of built-in accumulators is made using a wireless charging system without operator’s involvement.

Weather conditions however do not always allow immediate snow removal. Rain and snow sometimes cause road icing hidden by a thin layer of snow. In these circumstances it is practical to use a snow broom that will effectively remove snow and partially sleet and then apply de-icing agents to cause ice dissolution or antiskid mixtures that reduce slip ratio.

The above tasks can be successfully managed by a street snow-sweeper fitted with a snow broom and a spreader of de-icing agents or antiskid mixtures. Both robots have proved to be effective not only in urban environments, but also for cleaning areas near private residences.

The broom fitted to a street sweeper allows leaf litter removal in autumn and pathways sweeping all year round.