Various challenges, and their mitigations, from my own experience
Challenge: Visitor's vehicle in the driveway, Yarbo obstacle avoidance currently not trained for cars/raised, suspended obstacles. (yet, though please note obstacle avoidance improvements are being made with OTA updates, also, there is a notification in the app pertaining to this. as of the date of publication of this wiki entry)
Mitigation: I've left an area of my driveway outside the mapped boundary, and I have folks park in that area, until such time as obstacle avoidance is better trained. (currently a priority, and underway via OTA updates) I have a large driveway with a branch in front of a secondary, detached garage, I realize this may not work for others, YMMV
Challenge: Yarbo sometimes backs into / up the side of / over landscaping features. likely due to rear cameras not yet being used for obstacle avoidance. (yet, though please note obstacle avoidance improvements are being made with OTA updates)
Mitigation: I've mapped areas sensitive to reversing essentially blindly, as their own separate areas. I've set the turn method to "zero turn" in these areas, as this, for me, radically reduces the instances of the machine reversing, and also significantly reduces the maneuvering footprint required for changes of direction. This, for me, is most useful in the areas nearest the road, as I live on a semi-rural state route with 9000+ cars per day, traveling between 55-65 MPH.
Challenge: Mowing near roads is dangerous.
Mitigation:
A) I have Yarbo's areas near the road mapped separately, and the edges of these areas are a minimum 24" off the roadway, Nonetheless, because I have seen more than one person drop their tires off the shoulder into my yard while staring at "the cool lawnmower gadget" (your car goes where your gaze goes) and while driving 60+ MPH.
B) I have cameras watching the road when Yarbo is mowing these areas, so that I will have recordings when or if someone runs completely off the road, and annihilates my mower.
C) I only mow these areas between 3:30-5:00 AM on Sundays, as there is VERY little traffic at these times.
D) I make sure I am insured, and with all of this in place, I feel I've done all I can. It's worth mentioning that these same precautions should be observed near the end of a driveway during snow blowing and leaf blowing operations.
Challenge: Steep ditch lines, which must be mowed parallel, to prevent Yarbo getting stuck.
Mitigation: I actually used 2 separate options on my property, as one of the ditches required entering on an angle, and from a particular location on the "bank." For each of the ditches I mapped each of the "sides" or banks of the ditch as their own separate rectangle areas, the space between them was the ditch bottom, is often standing water, and has no grass. This way I could be sure Yarbo would not get into standing water, as it would have to stray outside of these areas' boundary to do so. Inside each of these rectangles, I used the starting angle to insure that Yarbo mows exactly parallel to the ditch, and then I turned off "automatically rotate angle." Lastly, I used pathways to insure that entry and egress to each of these areas went through terrain Yarbo could handle. On the most challenging ditch line, I used a series of dead ends, laid out side by side, which entered the ditch at a shallow angle, and then mowed parallel, and backed right back out the same way. This was a pain to set up, but it works well.
Challenge: Steep hills which must be mowed in a prescribed direction or orientation.
Mitigation: Side by side dead-ends, with the entry at the bottom of the incline would have Yarbo mow up the hill, and then back down the hill without turning around, eliminating the lifting of the rear of the core that would happen if it attempted to reverse up the hill.
Challenge: Yarbo seems to lose connectivity, or its movement in the app is inconsistent during operation.
Mitigation: In addition to data center placement recommendations, I've personally found that for best results, the following steps can be taken to minimize the amount of switching between the various connectivity modes as the rover operates. A) Once setup is complete, if you have a solid HaLow connection, do not also add your home's wifi network SSID to the rover. B) I find that when the rover is near my house, it will connect to bluetooth on my phone, then of course as it moves away, it will lose BT connectivity. Operation seems much smoother if I disable bluetooth on my phone when Yarbo is working. HaLow really is the best connection method to use once setup is completed, in my experience. I will note that I do have cellular enabled, just in case Yarbo gets beyond the range of the HaLow signal, due to obstructions, or atmospheric, or electromagnetic interference. Speaking on GPS, it is important to note that in order for RTK to function at it's best, the rover, and the datacenter need to be able to receive information from a common set of satellites. which is to say, for the best accuracy, the satellites “seen” by both the rover and the datacenter simultaneously are of paramount importance. Keep this in mind when evaluating any potential gps related issues.
I hope folks find some of this helpful. I will add more if I think of anything, or if I find more scenarios to deal with once tow mode and other items are released. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your Yarbo!