Autonomous mobile body

Abstract

To enable a person at a destination to recognize at an early stage that an autonomous mobile body is moving to a place of the person.SOLUTION: An autonomous mobile body includes: a traveling unit that has a drive wheel and a chassis and can move straight and turn and move left and right; and a second unit that is disposed at an upper portion of the traveling unit and has a top plate and an oscillating mechanism for performing an oscillating motion of moving around a vertical axis with reference to the traveling unit. The autonomous mobile body includes a controller that executes, in a case of causing the autonomous mobile body to move to a destination when the autonomous mobile body turns and moves in either a left direction or a right direction, control to cause the second unit to perform the oscillating motion in the same direction to bring the second unit into an oscillating state and to perform the oscillating motion in an opposite direction before changing from turning movement to straight movement to cause the second unit to return from the oscillating state to the non-oscillating state.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 4

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] The present invention relates to an autonomous moving body. [Background technology]

[0002] Conventionally, autonomous robots capable of transporting objects such as food, drink, and luggage have been researched and developed. When the destination is diagonally forward to the right of the current position, the autonomous robot moves forward in a straight line until it reaches a position where the front-rear position coincides with the destination, then turns 90 degrees to the right so as to face the destination, and moves forward in a straight line from there toward the destination. Alternatively, the autonomous robot calculates a travel trajectory connecting the current position and the destination, and reaches the destination by following the calculated travel trajectory.

[0003] On the other hand, when a restaurant employee delivers food to a customer, if the customer is diagonally in front of him / her to the right, the employee first turns his / her face toward the customer to confirm the location of the destination customer, and then gradually turns his / her body to approach the customer. In this case, the customer can recognize at an early stage that the employee is coming to him / her from the direction of the employee's face. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0004] [Patent Document 1] Patent No. 5768273 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0005] However, when considering using an autonomous robot instead of the above-mentioned employee, the autonomous robot does not turn its face toward the customer at an early stage, as the employee does, so the customer cannot recognize at an early stage that the autonomous robot is heading toward him / her, and there is room for improvement.

[0006] The present invention has been made in consideration of the above-mentioned circumstances, and has an objective of providing an autonomous moving body that can make a person at a destination recognize at an early stage that the autonomous moving body is moving to that person. [Means for solving the problem]

[0007] The autonomous moving body of this embodiment is an autonomous moving body comprising a running unit having drive wheels and a chassis, and capable of straight-line movement and swiveling movement to the left and right, and a second unit arranged on top of the running unit and having a top plate and a swivel mechanism for performing a swiveling movement that moves around a vertical axis based on the running unit, and is equipped with a control unit that, when the autonomous moving body is to move to a destination, controls the second unit to swivel in the same direction to put it in a swivel state when the autonomous moving body swivels in either the left or right direction, and controls the second unit to swivel in the opposite direction before changing from swivel movement to straight-line movement to return from the swivel state to a non-swivel state. Effect of the Invention

[0008] According to this embodiment, it is possible to make a person at a destination recognize at an early stage that the autonomous moving body is moving to that person. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0009] [Figure 1] FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a structure of an autonomous mobile robot according to an embodiment. [Diagram 2] FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a functional configuration of the autonomous mobile robot according to the embodiment. [Diagram 3] FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of the operation of the autonomous mobile robot according to the embodiment. [Figure 4] FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing performed by the autonomous mobile robot of the embodiment. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0010] The autonomous running robot (autonomous mobile body) of this embodiment will be described below with reference to the drawings. In the following description, "forward / backward (direction)" refers to a direction parallel to the traveling direction of the autonomous running robot. Also, "left / right (direction)" refers to a direction perpendicular to the traveling direction of the autonomous running robot and parallel to the ground.

[0011] First, the structure and functional configuration of the autonomous running robot R will be described with reference to Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. Fig. 1 is a diagram showing the structure of the autonomous running robot R of the embodiment. Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the functional configuration of the autonomous running robot R of the embodiment.

[0012] 1(a) is an external view of an autonomous mobile robot R. The autonomous mobile robot R can carry objects such as food, drink, and luggage, and moves autonomously within mobile environments such as restaurants, homes, facilities, warehouses, factories, and outdoors.

[0013] The autonomous traveling robot R includes a transport unit 1 (second unit) and a traveling unit 2. The traveling unit 2 is substantially rectangular in shape with rounded corners, has four drive wheels 21, and a chassis, and is capable of moving straight ahead and turning left and right.

[0014] The transport unit 1 is barrel-shaped and disposed on the upper part of the traveling unit 2. It comprises an upper body 11 and a lower body 12. The housing of the upper body 11 is fixed to a pendulum mechanism 14 (FIG. 1(b)) and moves in accordance with the movement of the pendulum mechanism 14. The housing of the lower body 12 is fixed to a rotation mechanism 13 (FIG. 1(b)) and rotates in accordance with the rotation movement of the rotation mechanism 13.

[0015] 1(b) is a diagram showing the internal structure of the carrying unit 1 of the autonomous mobile robot R. In other words, the housing part of the upper body 11 and the housing part of the lower body 12 in FIG. 1(a) are not shown in FIG. 1(b). The carrying unit 1 includes a rotation mechanism 13 and a pendulum mechanism 14.

[0016] The rotation mechanism 13 is a swivel mechanism for performing a swivel operation around a vertical axis with the traveling unit 2 as a reference.

[0017] The pendulum mechanism 14 is a transport mechanism for transporting luggage, and includes a front-to-back pendulum mechanism 141 and a left-to-right pendulum mechanism 142. The front-to-back pendulum mechanism 141 is a pendulum mechanism for tilting the top surface (top plate) of the upper body 11 in the front-to-back direction. The left-to-right pendulum mechanism 142 is a pendulum mechanism for tilting the top surface (top plate) of the upper body 11 in the left-to-right direction. An object to be transported by the autonomous traveling robot R is placed on the top surface (top plate) of the upper body 11. A mark 111 is attached to the top surface (top plate) of the upper body 11.

[0018] As shown in FIG. 2, the traveling unit 2 includes a traveling drive unit 22, a position sensor 23, an object detection sensor 24, and a traveling ECU 25.

[0019] The travel drive unit 22 includes an electric motor that drives the drive wheels 21 to rotate.

[0020] The position sensor 23 is a sensor that acquires data for the travel ECU 25 to estimate the position of the autonomous traveling robot R. The position sensor 23 is composed of, for example, a GPS (Global Positioning System) sensor, a rotational angular velocity sensor of the drive wheels 21, etc., and transmits a detection signal to the travel ECU 25.

[0021] The object detection sensor 24 is a sensor that detects objects (hereinafter, also referred to as "obstacles") around the autonomous traveling robot R. The object detection sensor 24 is composed of, for example, a LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) or a millimeter wave sensor, and transmits a detection signal to the traveling ECU 25. The object detection sensor 24 may also be composed of a camera, an ultrasonic sensor, an infrared sensor, or the like, or may be a combination of a plurality of means.

[0022] The travel ECU 25 is an information processing device configured using predetermined hardware and software, and is configured using, for example, a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a memory, an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), and the like.

[0023] The travel ECU 25 executes various controls. For example, the travel ECU 25 estimates the current position of the autonomous traveling robot R based on a detection signal obtained from the position sensor 223. The travel ECU 25 also recognizes obstacles around the autonomous traveling robot R based on a detection signal obtained from the object detection sensor 24. The travel ECU 25 also generates a travel route from the current position to the destination based on the current position, the destination, and the positions of the obstacles. The travel ECU 25 also controls the travel drive unit 22 to make the travel unit 2 (and thus the autonomous traveling robot R) travel along the travel route.

[0024] The rotation mechanism 13 further includes a swing drive unit 131, a rotation angle sensor 132, and a swing ECU 133 (control unit).

[0025] The swing drive unit 131 includes an actuator that rotates the rotation mechanism 13 .

[0026] The rotation angle sensor 132 is a sensor that detects the rotation angle of the rotation mechanism 13 , and transmits a detection signal to the swing ECU 133 .

[0027] The swing ECU 133 executes various controls. When the autonomous traveling robot R is moved to a destination by the travel ECU 25, when the autonomous traveling robot R turns to the left or right, the swing ECU 133 performs control to swing the transport unit 1 in the same direction to put it in a swing state, and swings it in the opposite direction before the turning movement changes to a straight movement, to return the swing state to a non-swing state.

[0028] In addition, when the autonomous traveling robot R turns to the left or right, the swing ECU 133 controls the transport unit 1 to swing in the same direction to a swing state up to a position where the front of the transport unit 1 faces the destination. The control of the swing ECU 133 will be described in detail with reference to Fig. 3. The travel ECU 25, swing ECU 133, and pendulum ECU 147 can communicate with each other by CAN (Controller Area Network) or the like, and transmit and receive necessary information.

[0029] 3 is a diagram showing an example of the operation of the autonomous mobile robot R according to the embodiment. In the example of FIG. 3, it is assumed that the autonomous mobile robot R moves from point A to point B (destination) while avoiding an obstacle O.

[0030] In FIG. 3(a1), point P1 indicates the current position of the autonomous mobile robot R (similarly for points P2 to P5). A travel route D indicates the travel route calculated by the autonomous mobile robot R. A range C indicates the range to be calculated. A point A1 is the start point of the curve on the travel route D. A point A2 is the end point of the curve on the travel route D.

[0031] Also, point F is the intersection of the boundary of the travel route D and the range C. Also, in Fig. 3 (a1) (a2), direction V1 indicates the direction in which (the front of) the travel unit 2 faces, specifically, the tangent direction of the travel route D at point P1. Also, direction V2 indicates the direction in which (the front of) the transport unit 1 faces, specifically, the direction from point P1 to point F.

[0032] At the time of FIG. 3(a), the portion of the travel path D within the range C in the traveling direction is a straight line, so the direction V1 and the direction V2 are the same.

[0033] Next, at the time of Figure 3(b), since the traveling direction portion of the driving route D within the range C includes a curved portion, the direction V2 (the direction of the line E from the point P2 to the point F) is slightly inward (to the right of the traveling direction) than the direction V1.

[0034] Next, at the time of Figure 3(c), the portion of the driving path D in the direction of travel within range C contains many curved portions, so direction V2 (the direction of line E from point P3 to point F) is further inward (to the right of the direction of travel) than direction V1 compared to the time of Figure 3(b).

[0035] Next, at the time of Figure 3(d), the portion of the driving path D in the direction of travel within range C includes a slight curved portion, so direction V2 (the direction of line E from point P4 to point F) is smaller and more inward (to the right of the direction of travel) than direction V1 compared to the time of Figure 3(c).

[0036] Next, at the time of FIG. 3(e), the traveling direction portion of the travel route D within the range C is a straight line portion only, so the direction V1 and the direction V2 are the same.

[0037] Returning to FIGS. 1 and 2, the pendulum mechanism 14 includes a left-right pendulum drive unit 143 , a front-rear pendulum drive unit 144 , a position sensor 145 , an acceleration sensor 146 , and a pendulum ECU 147 .

[0038] The left / right pendulum drive unit 143 is a mechanism for making the upper body 11 perform left / right pendulum motion to offset the effect of left / right acceleration that occurs in the autonomous robot R when the autonomous robot R turns left / right to prevent objects placed on the top surface (top plate) of the upper body 11 from falling left / right due to this effect.

[0039] When the autonomous traveling robot R accelerates or decelerates in the forward / backward direction, acceleration occurs in the autonomous traveling robot R. The forward / backward pendulum drive unit 144 is a mechanism for causing the upper body 11 to perform pendulum motion in the forward / backward direction to offset the effect of this acceleration so that objects placed on the top surface (top plate) of the upper body 11 do not fall in the forward / backward direction due to this effect.

[0040] The left-right pendulum drive unit 143 and the front-back pendulum drive unit 144 can be controlled in parallel. Therefore, even if acceleration occurs in any direction around 360 degrees around the autonomous traveling robot R, by controlling the left-right pendulum drive unit 143 and the front-back pendulum drive unit 144 in parallel to cancel out the effect of the acceleration, it is possible to prevent an object placed on the top surface (top plate) of the upper body 11 from falling off.

[0041] The position sensor 145 is a sensor that acquires data for estimating the position of the pendulum mechanism 14. The position sensor 23 is constituted by, for example, a rotational angular velocity sensor, and transmits a detection signal to the pendulum ECU 147. Note that the position sensor 145 may be provided for each of the front-rear pendulum mechanism 141 and the left-right pendulum mechanism 142.

[0042] The acceleration sensor 146 detects the acceleration generated in the pendulum mechanism 14 and transmits a detection signal to the pendulum ECU 147 .

[0043] The pendulum ECU 147 executes various controls. Based on detection signals acquired from the position sensor 145 and the acceleration sensor 146, the pendulum ECU 147 controls the left-right pendulum drive unit 143 and the front-rear pendulum drive unit 144 to make the upper body 11 perform pendulum motion so that an object placed on the top surface (top plate) of the upper body 11 does not fall due to acceleration generated in the autonomous traveling robot R.

[0044] Next, the processing by the autonomous running robot R will be described with reference to Fig. 4. Fig. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing by the autonomous running robot R of the embodiment.

[0045] In step S1, the travel ECU 25 generates a travel route D (FIG. 3) from the current position to the destination based on the current position, the destination, and the positions of obstacles.

[0046] Next, in step S2, the swing ECU 133 sets a range C (FIG. 3) centered on the self-position (the position of the autonomous traveling robot R).

[0047] Next, in step S3, the swing ECU 133 determines whether a line E (not shown in (a) and (e) of Figures 3) connecting the vehicle's own position (points P1 to P5 in Figure 3) and point F, which is the intersection point of the boundary between the driving route D and range C, is parallel to the driving route D within range C; if Yes, the process proceeds to step S5; if No, the process proceeds to step S4.

[0048] In step S4, the swing ECU 133 controls the swing drive unit 131 to swing the rotation mechanism 13 (and thus the transport unit 1) to the direction of the line E.

[0049] In step S5, the travel ECU 25 controls the travel drive unit 22 to cause the travel unit 2 (and thus the autonomous traveling robot R) to travel along the travel route D.

[0050] Next, in step S6, the travel ECU 25 determines whether or not the autonomous traveling robot R has arrived at the destination. If Yes, the process proceeds to step S7, and if No, the process returns to step S3.

[0051] In step S7, the traveling ECU 25 controls the traveling drive unit 22 to stop, and the traveling of the autonomous traveling robot R ends.

[0052] In this way, when the autonomous mobile robot R of this embodiment turns left or right to move to the destination, the transport unit 1 is swung in the same direction to put it in a swiveling state, as in the case of the employee described above (FIGS. 3(b)(c)(d)). This allows the person at the destination to recognize at an early stage that the autonomous mobile robot R is moving to the person.

[0053] In addition, when the autonomous mobile robot R is swung to a swiveling state, the transport unit 1 can be swung up to a position where the front of the transport unit 1 faces the destination, which is closer to the above-mentioned case of the employee. This allows the person at the destination to recognize at an early stage and without feeling uncomfortable that the autonomous mobile robot R is moving to the person.

[0054] The program executed by the autonomous robot R of this embodiment can be provided by recording it in an installable or executable file format on a recording medium readable by a computer device, such as a CD (Compact Disc)-ROM (Read Only Memory), a flexible disk (FD), a CD-R (Recordable), or a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk). The program may also be provided or distributed via a network such as the Internet.

[0055] Although the embodiment of the present invention has been described above, this embodiment is presented as an example and is not intended to limit the scope of the invention. This new embodiment can be implemented in various other forms, and various omissions, substitutions, and modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the invention. This embodiment and its modifications are included in the scope and gist of the invention, and are included in the scope of the invention and its equivalents described in the claims.

[0056] For example, the acceleration sensor 146 may be provided in the traveling unit 2, instead of in the pendulum mechanism 14. In that case, however, the acceleration sensor 146 does not detect the acceleration due to the pendulum motion by the pendulum mechanism 14 or the rotational motion by the rotation mechanism 13. However, the pendulum ECU 147 can determine the control contents for the left / right pendulum drive unit 143 and the front / rear pendulum drive unit 144 by using not only the detection signal by the acceleration sensor 146, but also previous control signals by the pendulum ECU 147 to the left / right pendulum drive unit 143 and the front / rear pendulum drive unit 144, and previous control signals by the swing ECU 133 to the swing drive unit 131.

[0057] On the other hand, if the acceleration sensor 146 is provided in the pendulum mechanism 14 as in the above embodiment, such complicated processing is not required because the acceleration sensor 146 detects the acceleration due to the pendulum motion of the pendulum mechanism 14 and the rotational motion of the rotation mechanism 13. In other words, the control contents for the left-right pendulum drive unit 143 and the front-rear pendulum drive unit 144 can be determined by simple processing based only on the detection signal from the acceleration sensor 146.

[0058] Furthermore, the present invention can be widely applied to autonomous mobile bodies in general, in addition to autonomous running robots. [Explanation of symbols]

[0059] 1...transport unit, 2...travel unit, 11...upper body (transport mechanism), 12...lower body (swivel mechanism), 13...rotation mechanism (swivel mechanism), 21...drive wheel, 131...swivel drive unit (swivel mechanism), 132...rotation angle sensor (swivel mechanism), 133...swivel ECU (control unit), R...autonomous traveling robot (autonomous moving body)

Claims

1. A traveling unit having drive wheels and a chassis and capable of moving straight ahead and turning left and right; An autonomous moving body including: a top plate and a second unit having a swivel mechanism for performing a swivel motion around a vertical axis based on the traveling unit, the second unit being disposed on an upper portion of the traveling unit; An autonomous mobile body comprising: a control unit that performs control such that, when the autonomous mobile body is moving to a destination and the autonomous mobile body is turning in either the left or right direction, the second unit is swung in the same direction to put it in a swiveling state, and before the turning movement changes to a straight movement, the second unit is swung in the opposite direction to return it from the swiveling state to a non-swiveling state.

2. 2. The autonomous mobile body according to claim 1, wherein when the autonomous mobile body moves in a turning motion in either the left or right direction, the control unit controls the second unit to swivel in the same direction to put it in a swivel state up to a position where the front of the second unit is directly facing the destination.

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