Hi Roland .
As i understand you perfectly know the problem.
For me to solve it the mower need to stay always exactly where the field intensity is minimum so perfectly upper the wire.
I have also two coil possibility but don't try because the
arduino Mega is not very fast ,Each 30ms the perimeter mag is not read with one coil , so two coil ?????.
With the slow tracking it's work well perimeter mag is read each 40 ms.
Maybee the
Arduino DUE can work better but i am waiting for the next PCB board and then try sunray because i thing it's very good solution, for example we can approch the station with the map so no track on grass .
i agree that it's very good option to follow the wire inside the loop at changing distance to avoid track on the grass (like HVA mower).
Two other solution to detect the station.
1 I view that the perimeter sender use only one output of the MC33926 and maybe the second can be used
to create an other small perimeter around the station or directly a guide wire like the HVA mower use.
2 Also it's possible to put a IR emetter in the station and the recever into the mower,normally it's work at low distance.
The sonar i don't have good experience on it, on the two tianchen mower i have they don't work more than 1 year and not very well.
But as it work very well on car normaly it may work on mower.
For Bumper your solution is cool but do you know the Robomow RL1000 bumper, It's very simple and work perfecly.The problem is i don't know if you can find this solution at low cost, normaly it's used on safety close door, i try to send you a picture.
Thanks.