Development of an Autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicle for Artistic Landscaping

As cities strive to become more sustainable and livable in the age of smart urban develop-ment, there is tendency toward urban landscaping concepts that combine ecological bene-fits and aesthetic appeal. Within this context, artistic landscaping, the deliberate spatial arrangement of plant species to create visual compositions, has emerged as a valuable as-pect of modern urban green infrastructure. While cutting-edge Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) development has primarily focused on large-scale precision agriculture, its poten-tial for artistic and small-scale urban landscaping remains unexplored. Furthermore, inte-grating Internet of Things (IoT) technology into UGVs for autonomous seeding presents an interesting research point. Addressing these challenges, this paper introduces a compact design of an IoT-enabled UGV specifically for artistic landscaping applications. The sys-tem includes an effective full seeding mechanism with dedicated modules for soil digging, sowing, water spraying, and backfilling. These operational modules are coordinated using a microcontroller-based control system to ensure reliability and repeatability. Additional-ly, in this study, a web-based interface has been developed to support both autonomous and manual operation modes, allowing users to customize path planning for geometric seeding patterns as well as real-time monitoring. A fully functional prototype was built and tested under controlled conditions to confirm the core modules’ effectiveness. This development provides a practical solution for supporting the realization of smart and sustainable cities.