Autonomous Mobile Navigation Around Doorway No-Stopping Zones
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous mobile devices, such as robots, face challenges in safely navigating environments by avoiding discretionary stops in areas where they may block human movement, such as doorways, without prior collision detection, leading to potential safety hazards and operational inefficiencies.
Innovation Solution
The system determines constraint locations within an environment using occupancy maps and graph algorithms to identify areas where discretionary stops should be avoided, enforcing movement constraints to prevent blocking and ensuring safety through no stopping areas and speed management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the autonomous mobile device operates freely without movement constraints, then operational flexibility and task completion efficiency are improved, but safety hazards increase due to potential blocking of human movement in critical areas
Solution Approach 1:
The environment is segmented into discrete constraint locations and no stopping areas based on human movement patterns. The system divides the operational space into zones where stopping is permitted and zones where stopping is prohibited, allowing the robot to maintain flexibility in permitted areas while ensuring safety in restricted areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary analysis of human movement patterns to identify constraint locations and no stopping areas before the autonomous device begins operation. By pre-mapping these safety zones and integrating them into the navigation system, the robot can proactively avoid blocking human movement without real-time intervention, maintaining both safety and operational efficiency.
2Reliability
If the autonomous mobile device implements constraint location determination and no stopping area enforcement, then safety is improved by preventing blocking of human movement, but device complexity increases due to additional sensing and processing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The autonomous mobile device utilizes its existing sensors and processing capabilities to perform multiple functions: navigation, obstacle detection, and constraint location determination. By making the existing system multi-functional rather than adding dedicated specialized hardware, the safety improvements are achieved without proportionally increasing device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system determines constraint locations and no stopping areas autonomously by analyzing human movement patterns and environmental data. The autonomous device self-configures its navigation constraints without requiring external programming or manual intervention, reducing the operational complexity while maintaining high safety standards.
3Productivity
If the autonomous mobile device avoids discretionary stops in no stopping areas, then operational efficiency is improved by preventing safety hazards, but navigation flexibility is reduced due to movement constraints
Solution Approach 1:
The navigation system dynamically adjusts movement constraints based on the robot's current task and location. The system allows discretionary stops in areas where human movement is not expected while enforcing no stopping constraints in identified constraint locations. This dynamic adaptation maintains navigation flexibility for task completion while ensuring operational efficiency through automated safety enforcement.
Data Source
AI summary
A system determines one or more constraint locations that are present in an environment. A constraint location is a location in the environment through which a user, pet, or moving device is deemed likely to pass due to one or more physical constraints such as walls, furniture, and so forth. For example, a constraint location may be located at a midpoint of a doorway, or where a corridor narrows. Movement of an autonomous mobile device in an environment takes these constraint locations into consideration. In one implementation the autonomous mobile device is prevented from stopping within a threshold distance of a constraint location to avoid blocking movement of others.