Autonomous Floor Washer Route Teaching for Skilled Cleaning Reproduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional self-propelled floor washers require operator intervention, leading to inefficiencies when few skilled workers need to clean large areas, as they lack autonomous operation capabilities.
Innovation Solution
An autonomously traveling floor washer that reproduces a taught cleaning condition and travel route using a cleaning unit, traveling unit, position estimating unit, cleaning condition teaching unit, travel route teaching unit, and cleaning schedule generation unit, allowing for autonomous operation without manual intervention.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a self-propelled floor washer is used, then cleaning can be performed with reduced manual effort, but it still requires operator intervention and skilled workers
Solution Approach 1:
The floor washer autonomously performs cleaning operations without requiring operator intervention. The control unit automatically controls the traveling unit and cleaning unit based on stored cleaning conditions and floor information, enabling the device to serve itself and eliminate the need for skilled workers.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual mechanical operation with an automated control system. The control unit uses sensors to detect floor information and automatically generates control signals for traveling and cleaning operations, substituting human mechanical control with an automated electronic control system.
2Reliability
If skilled cleaning workers clean large areas, then cleaning quality can be maintained, but labor requirements become insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The control unit stores multiple cleaning conditions with different parameters (e.g., brush rotation speed, traveling speed, water flow rate) and automatically selects appropriate parameters based on detected floor information. This enables the system to maintain high cleaning quality across large areas by adapting parameters to different floor conditions without requiring skilled workers.
3Extent of automation
If manual operation teaching is implemented, then autonomous cleaning can be achieved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The control unit stores cleaning conditions and floor information in advance during a teaching phase. This preliminary action allows the system to later autonomously reproduce cleaning operations without requiring complex real-time decision-making algorithms, thereby reducing overall system complexity while maintaining autonomous capability.
Data Source
AI summary
In an autonomously traveling floor washer, a position estimating unit estimates position data. When a manual operation teaching mode is being executed, a taught data obtaining unit obtains taught position data and a taught cleaning condition at a taught data obtaining time. A cleaning schedule generation unit generates a cleaning schedule. When an autonomous cleaning mode is executed, a cleaning reproduction unit calculates and outputs a reproduced travel control command and a reproduced cleaning condition in an elapsed time based on the cleaning schedule. An elapsed time determining unit determines the taught data obtaining time and the elapsed time.