This is probably a hopelessly naive question, but I do see turnkey devices like Scribbler (
http://tinyurl.com/28zmfxs) and Roomba (
http://tinyurl.com/pel8x75).
I also see some home-made efforts like the light-seeking Aduino device at
http://tinyurl.com/p52qmt3,The application would be discouraging deer, the bane of many homeowners, from browsing on whatever they find tasty in the owner's yard.
Existing methods are varied and numerous, but seem to share the same fault: deer get used to them and/or learn to tolerate them.
I'm thinking that a little tracked vehicle that would be attracted to anything that presented a certain mass a certain height off the ground could be made to approach it, identify a leg, and bump up against it repeatedly - something that I'd hope deer would not learn to tolerate.
Is this a hopelessly-complex undertaking?
Might somebody already have done it?