Charterhouse Turf Machinery (Redexim North America in Europe) is testing a prototype walk-behind Verti-Top machine for cleaning and maintaining synthetic turf surfaces where access is limited. Less than 90cm in width, the MK2 version is designed to pass through standard 100cm gateways and is suited to tennis courts and five-a-side areas.
Working on the same principle as the 1.2m and 1.8m tractor-mounted Verti-Tops, the walk-behind version has a powered rotary brush that sweeps to a predetermined depth in the carpet, lifting the pile and extracting the top 1-15mm of infill material along with any debris. The infill is lifted onto a shaking sieve where a vacuum draws out the fines and dust.
The sieve then separates infill from detritus, returning the infill to the surface and collecting the detritus in the hopper. The cleaned infill is brushed back into the fibers of the carpet, leaving a clean and level finish. See a photo of prototype here