Non-Circular Cleaning Robot Escape Control in Confined Spaces
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cleaning robots often get stuck in confined spaces due to their size mismatch with the required rotation space, leading to inability to move or rotate, which affects their traveling performance and cleaning efficiency.
Innovation Solution
The cleaning robot is designed with a non-circular main body and equipped with detectors on multiple surfaces to detect obstacles and determine stuck states, allowing it to perform backward movement and rotation to escape from stuck situations by comparing detected angles and distances with predetermined values, and using bumpers to mitigate collisions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If the cleaning robot uses a standard circular shape for the main body, then it is easy to manufacture and simple in structure, but it cannot escape from confined spaces where the rotation space is smaller than the main body size
Solution Approach 1:
The main body is designed with an asymmetric non-circular shape, specifically an oval shape with a long axis and a short axis. This asymmetric geometry allows the robot to rotate within a smaller space than a circular robot of equivalent dimensions, enabling it to escape from confined spaces where the rotation space is smaller than the main body size would normally require.
2Reliability
If the cleaning robot is equipped with multiple detectors on front and side surfaces to accurately detect obstacles and determine stuck states, then the ability to identify confined spaces is improved, but the device complexity and manufacturing cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The detector is designed to perform multiple functions: it detects obstacles in front of the main body, determines whether the robot is in a stuck state by detecting obstacles during rotation, and identifies confined spaces by comparing rotation angles. This multi-functional detector reduces the need for multiple separate sensors while maintaining high detection accuracy and reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The robot uses its own rotation motion to generate detection data. By rotating the main body and using the detector to monitor obstacles during this self-generated motion, the system can determine stuck states and confined spaces without requiring additional active sensing mechanisms, thereby reducing overall system complexity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the cleaning robot performs rotation by a large angle to bypass obstacles, then the ability to escape stuck states is improved, but the time required for obstacle bypassing increases
Solution Approach 1:
The robot performs a partial rotation by a predetermined angle (which may be less than a full 180-degree or 360-degree rotation) to bypass obstacles and escape stuck states. This partial action is sufficient to change the robot's orientation and allow it to move forward in a different direction, achieving obstacle bypassing without the time cost of complete rotations.
Data Source
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AI summary
A cleaning robot includes a non-circular main body, a moving assembly mounted on a bottom surface of the main body to perform forward movement, backward movement and rotation of the main body, a cleaning tool assembly mounted on the bottom surface of the main body to clean a floor, a detector to detect an obstacle around the main body, and a controller to determine whether an obstacle is present in a forward direction of the main body based on a detection signal of the detector, control the rotation of the main body to determine whether the main body rotates by a predetermined angle or more upon determining that the obstacle is present in the forward direction, and determine that the main body is in a stuck state to control the backward movement of the main body if the main body rotates by the predetermined angle or less.