Automated Floor Cleaner with Position Mapping for Complete Coverage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Manual floor cleaning in high-hygiene environments like hospitals often results in missed areas due to the difficulty of navigating around obstacles and the lack of thoroughness in automated cleaning systems, which struggle to ensure consistent cleaning standards.
Innovation Solution
An automated floor cleaner equipped with a sensing system and an endless belt with bristles that maps its position and cleans the floor thoroughly, using a motor-driven belt and fluid jets for effective cleaning, while navigating around obstacles and ensuring complete coverage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If manual floor cleaning is performed by an operator using a scrubber dryer, then flexibility in navigating around obstacles is improved, but cleaning thoroughness and consistency deteriorate due to operator oversight and fatigue
Solution Approach 1:
The automated floor cleaner performs cleaning operations autonomously without human intervention. The machine navigates obstacles, maintains cleaning paths, and monitors its own operation through sensors and mapping capabilities, eliminating operator fatigue and oversight while maintaining consistent cleaning standards throughout the entire floor area
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical operation of a scrubber dryer with an automated system featuring robotic navigation, sensor-based obstacle detection, and computer-controlled cleaning mechanisms. This substitution eliminates human error while maintaining the physical cleaning function through automated belt-driven scrubbing surfaces
2Device complexity
If automated cleaners use generalised cleaning patterns without position mapping, then device complexity is reduced, but ability to assess cleaning coverage and ensure thorough cleaning deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The automated floor cleaner incorporates sensors that continuously monitor position, cleaning coverage, and operational status. This feedback is processed by a controller that adjusts cleaning patterns in real-time, ensures complete area coverage, and provides data on cleaning thoroughness, enabling precise assessment without excessive complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces position mapping and spatial tracking as an additional dimension to the cleaning system. By recording the cleaner's position and cleaning path in two-dimensional space, the system can assess coverage accuracy and ensure thorough cleaning without requiring complex programming, transforming the problem from pattern-based to position-based control
3Ease of operation
If manual cleaning operators work around hospital equipment and obstacles, then ease of operation is improved, but cleaning coverage of hard-to-reach areas deteriorates due to blocked or shielded areas
Solution Approach 1:
The automated floor cleaner employs dynamic navigation capabilities that allow it to adapt its cleaning path in real-time based on obstacle detection. The machine can dynamically adjust its trajectory, approach angles, and cleaning patterns to access hard-to-reach areas around hospital equipment, ensuring complete coverage without requiring manual intervention to navigate around obstacles
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Ensures thorough and consistent cleaning across entire areas, including hard-to-reach spaces, by mapping its path and adjusting for obstacles, thereby improving cleaning standards and reducing human error.
Implementation Method 1
a sensing means configured to sense the position of the floor cleaner within a location
Implementation Method 2
a motor, connected to the belt to drive the belt independently of movement of the floor cleaner across the floor
Implementation Method 3
an endless belt, connected to and extending from the cleaner body so that in use a section of the surface area of the belt is in contact with the floor to in use clean the floor surface
Implementation Method 4
an endless belt, connected to and extending from the cleaner body so that in use a section of the surface area of the belt is in contact with the floor to in use clean the floor surface
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3
Figure 4~5
AI summary
An automated floor cleaner (1) has a cleaner body (2); a cleaning means (3, 45, 6) connected to the cleaner body (2) and configured to in use contact a floor surface to clean the surface; a movement means (7, 19, 8) connected to the cleaner body (2) and configured so that in use the floor cleaner (1) can move across a surface, and; a sensing means 16a, 16b configured to sense the position of the floor cleaner within a location and to transmit data relating to the position to a memory module (20) configured to map and record the position of the floor cleaner (1) during use.