Meet i-Shovel an Autonomous Robotic Snow Shovel

Tired of shoveling snow? Well meet I-Shovel, the smartest snow shovel in the world. The I-Shovel robot is completely autonomous, so it's a set it and forget robot like the Roomba robot is for cleaning your carpet. I-Shovel automatically detects the snow accumulation and cleans the drive way automatically. It has a built in computer to control the shoveling process and various sensors to figure out the perimeter.

The robot is powered by two independently controllable motors. When I-Shovel's Robot controller receives a signal from Snow Sensor, it wakes up and starts moving forward, pushing snow towards an edge until it reaches a perimeter marker or resistance sufficient to stop it. Unlike snow throwers that are usually used to clean snow after the storm, I-Shovel is designed to wake up and shovel snow when ever it senses reasonable accumulation of snow. This concept makes it possible to devise a shoveling mechanism with relatively low power consumption and no dangerous moving parts, enabling it to operate unattended. This is a convenience that was only available so far with heated drive ways which are much more expensive to own and operate.

Since the robot cleans snow gradually, it can handle large snow storms without any issues. The battery has enough charge to shovel 1,000 sq feet four times.

Availability and Pricing
The pricing is not yet known but according to the company's web site it should be comparable to existing gasoline powered snow throwers on the market. The i-Shovel robotic snow remover will be avaliable within a year.

More Information
i-Shovel.com