Cleaning Robot Diagonal Following Control to Reduce Redundant Coverage
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional techniques for multiple autonomous cleaning robots operating in the same area lead to inefficient cleaning, with robots often cleaning the same spots redundantly or missing spots altogether, as they work independently without effective coordination.
Innovation Solution
An autonomously moving body equipped with a driver, moving body detector, and movement controller that allows multiple robots to follow each other while maintaining a diagonal position behind the lead robot relative to obstacles, reducing redundant and missed cleaning paths by detecting movement states, directions, and distances between robots.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multiple autonomous cleaning robots operate independently in the same area, then each robot can perform its cleaning task autonomously, but they clean the same spots redundantly or miss spots altogether, reducing overall cleaning efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the navigation and task execution functions of multiple independent robots into a coordinated system. One robot acts as a leader that performs path planning and obstacle avoidance, while follower robots replicate its movements with a time delay, ensuring all robots work on different areas simultaneously and efficiently
Solution Approach 2:
Follower robots copy the leader robot's navigation behavior by detecting its position and reproducing its movement pattern with a predetermined time lag. This copying mechanism ensures that followers traverse different paths than the leader, eliminating redundant cleaning of the same spots while maintaining autonomous operation
2Productivity
If multiple robots operate independently without coordination, then each robot maintains autonomous operation simplicity, but they fail to cover all areas efficiently, creating missed spots
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback through detectors that continuously monitor the leader robot's position and movement state. Follower robots use this feedback information to adjust their trajectories and maintain appropriate spacing, ensuring comprehensive area coverage without overlapping paths
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces temporal dimension to spatial navigation by implementing time-delayed path following. Instead of robots operating purely in spatial dimensions independently, followers replicate the leader's path with a time offset, effectively transforming the coordination problem into a temporal sequence that ensures spatial distribution across different areas
Data Source
AI summary
A cleaning robot which performs a predetermined task while autonomously moving includes: a driver which makes the cleaning robot move; an image capturer which detects a movement state indicating whether a different cleaning robot existing in front of the cleaning robot is moving along an obstacle, a direction in which the different cleaning robot exists relative to the cleaning robot, and a distance between the cleaning robot and the different cleaning robot; and a following run controller which controls the driver in order for the cleaning robot to move following the different cleaning robot while keeping a position diagonally behind the different cleaning robot at an opposite side of the different cleaning robot from the obstacle, if the movement state indicates that the different cleaning robot is moving along the obstacle.