Cleaning Robot Hand-Gesture Control to Reduce User Labor
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional cleaning robots lack the ability to recognize user intention and require significant user labor, as they often require manual operation and can be cumbersome due to increased size and weight with higher suction power, limiting their effectiveness and user satisfaction.
Innovation Solution
A cleaning robot equipped with an imager and controller that recognizes hand movements or markers to adjust its cleaning path and operation, allowing for interactive control and reduced user labor by tracking hand movements or marker positions to determine cleaning directions and intensities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Power
If the suction power of the vacuum cleaner is increased, then the cleaning ability is improved, but the size and weight of the main body increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual mechanical operation with an automated robotic system equipped with sensors and navigation capabilities. The cleaning robot autonomously moves around the cleaning area, detects obstacles, and performs cleaning operations without requiring the user to physically move or manipulate a heavy vacuum cleaner, thus resolving the contradiction between high suction power and user labor.
2Ease of operation
If the cleaning robot is made autonomous, then user labor is reduced, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cleaning robot is designed to autonomously navigate, detect obstacles, and perform cleaning operations without continuous user intervention. The system uses sensors, processors, and automated control mechanisms to make decisions and execute cleaning tasks independently, thereby reducing user labor while managing device complexity through integrated autonomous functionality.
3Ease of operation
If virtual wall beacons are used for navigation, then the cleaning path can be controlled, but the cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses visual markers placed on the floor as a cost-effective alternative to virtual wall beacons. These markers are captured by the robot's camera system, and their positions are processed to determine cleaning paths and boundaries. This approach achieves similar navigation control functionality while reducing costs by using simple visual markers instead of expensive beacon systems.
Data Source
AI summary
A cleaning robot includes a main body, a moving assembly to move the main body, a cleaning tool provided at a bottom part of the main body to collect foreign substances on a floor, an imager to collect images around the main body and a controller to recognize motion of a hand by performing image processing of the collected images, identify a control command corresponding to the motion of the hand, plan a moving direction and a moving distance of the main body as movement information based on the control command, and control operations of the moving assembly and the cleaning tool based on the planned movement information. Since the user directly controls movement of the cleaning robot, it is possible to improve interactivity between human and cleaning robot, reduce the user's labor and increase convenience.