Automatic Floor Cleaning Appliance for Inclined Carpet Borders
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Solution Overview
Problem
Automatically traveling floor cleaning appliances struggle to effectively clean upwardly inclined obstacles like carpet borders without making contact with their edges, leading to incomplete cleaning and potential entanglement or sticking issues.
Innovation Solution
The appliance adjusts its direction of travel to maintain a smaller lateral distance from the obstacle's boundary edge, allowing targeted cleaning of the obstacle surface without direct contact, using sensors for obstacle detection and programming multiple cleaning passes to ensure thorough cleaning, and employing a disk brush for effective edge cleaning.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If the cleaning appliance travels directly over the obstacle to clean it, then the obstacle cleaning coverage is improved, but the appliance may get entangled or stuck on the upwardly inclined edge
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of traveling directly over the obstacle as conventional appliances do, the invention inverts the approach by traveling along the obstacle at a lateral distance, maintaining parallel motion rather than perpendicular motion across the obstacle surface
Solution Approach 2:
The invention introduces an intermediary cleaning brush that extends laterally beyond the appliance body to reach the obstacle surface without requiring the appliance to contact the upwardly inclined edge directly, acting as a mediator between the appliance and the obstacle
2Reliability
If the appliance travels at a larger lateral distance from the obstacle, then entanglement risk is reduced, but obstacle cleaning effectiveness deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The invention applies local quality by extending the cleaning brush specifically at the lateral position where the obstacle contacts the appliance body, concentrating cleaning action at the critical interface zone while maintaining safe travel distance
Solution Approach 2:
The invention transitions from one-dimensional perpendicular cleaning (directly over the obstacle) to two-dimensional cleaning by utilizing lateral extension of the brush in the direction parallel to the obstacle surface
3Device complexity
If the appliance uses standard cleaning brushes, then device complexity is minimized, but cleaning precision on narrow obstacle edges deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The invention implements local quality by providing cleaning brushes only at the lateral positions where obstacles contact the appliance body, rather than uniform brush distribution, optimizing cleaning precision where needed while minimizing overall device complexity
Data Source
AI summary
An automatically traveling floor cleaning appliance during travel is capable of traveling over low obstacles extending lengthwise, typically represented by a carpet border, having an upwardly inclined obstructing surface, with a direction of travel at a right or acute angle with respect to a longitudinal extent of the obstacle. The appliance also has an obstacle detector. The appliance is formed so that the obstacle or an area adjoining same may be cleaned using a procedure in which the appliance assumes a direction of travel based on the extent of the obstacle, and with regard to the obstructing surface includes traveling on a floor area in front of the obstacle, and at a lateral distance of an associated boundary edge of the appliance in the direction of travel from the obstructing surface which is smaller than that corresponding to a width of the appliance perpendicular to the direction of travel.