Image: Turf Tank
Turf Tank — inventor of an autonomous, GPS-guided line marking robot, built and designed specifically for painting athletic fields — has released the Turf Tank Two.
This robot features dual motor drives for enhanced torque and optimized wheels for traction. On its own and controlled through a tablet, the Turf Tank Two can paint a regulation 11 versus 11 soccer field in less than 24 minutes, a baseball or softball field in less than 11 minutes, a lacrosse field in less than 26 minutes, and a full 100-yard football field in less than 3.5 hours. It can also paint logos and numbers.
The Turf Tank Two is 43 in x 33 in x 22.5 in. It weighs 123 lbs, without paint or the battery installed, and it can hold 5.5 gallons of paint.
Enhanced features of the Turf Tank Two also include a revamped sprayer module and advanced control features — including a redesigned front panel that has convenient pause/resume options with LED indicators displaying the robot’s status and a start/stop sprayer button. An LED indicator also comes on the battery.
Turf Tank Two is both eco- and environmentally friendly, the company says. Its batteries are rechargeable and because of the robot’s precision and accuracy, it uses significantly less paint and eliminates the overspray that is common with either painting by hand or using many of the older paint machines and sprayers in the market.
Guided by GPS, the Turf Tank Two uses a base station to ensure its accuracy. The base station becomes a fixed point from which the robot knows to paint the same exact field every time it is dispatched. The base station communicates with satellites to ensure the accuracy of the field dimensions.
Once the user installs a particular field layout, it becomes a simple drag and drop process through the tablet. From there, it’s as simple as setting one to four points on each field to give the robot a starting point, and then the robot will paint that field autonomously.