Mobile Robot Hazard Detection for Safer Retail Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Retail environments face significant costs due to pedestrian injuries from walking hazards, with expenditures for safety and shopping experience improvements often disassociated, leading to high liability and insurance costs.
Innovation Solution
An autonomous mobile robot system equipped with sensors and processing systems for hazard detection and control, capable of mapping navigation paths, detecting hazards, and taking actions to address them, such as alerting personnel and changing routes to prevent injuries.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If retail environments purchase autonomous mobile robots for safety and shopping experience improvement, then pedestrian safety and shopping experience are improved, but operational costs and liability expenses increase
Solution Approach 1:
The mobile robot is designed to perform multiple functions: hazard detection using sensors, navigation path planning, autonomous movement to hazardous locations, and alerting personnel through communications. This multi-functionality consolidates what would otherwise require separate safety systems into a single autonomous platform, improving reliability while managing complexity through integration rather than proliferation of separate devices
Solution Approach 2:
The robot autonomously detects hazards, navigates to them, and alerts personnel without requiring continuous human supervision or manual operation. The system self-manages the safety monitoring task by independently executing detection, navigation, and communication functions, reducing the need for additional human safety personnel and associated operational costs
2Reliability
If separate systems are used for safety and shopping experience improvements, then each function can be optimized independently, but total costs become exorbitant due to disassociated expenditures
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines hazard detection, autonomous navigation, and personnel alerting functions into a single integrated mobile robot system. By merging these previously disassociated safety functions into one coordinated platform, the system achieves cost efficiency through shared infrastructure (sensors, processors, actuators, communications) while maintaining optimized performance for each individual function
Solution Approach 2:
The mobile robot serves as a universal platform that handles multiple safety-related tasks: detecting various hazard types using sensor arrays, navigating autonomously to different hazard locations, and communicating alerts to personnel. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for separate specialized systems for each task, improving cost efficiency while maintaining reliable safety coverage
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus, system and method capable of providing an autonomous mobile robot hazard detection and control system, including a robot having a robot body; a plurality of sensors physically associated with the robot body capable of detecting a hazardous condition in an operational environment; and at least one processing system at least partially physically associated with the robot body and communicatively connected to the plurality of sensors. The at least one processing system may include non-transitory computing code which, when executed by a processor of the at least one processing system, causes to occur the steps of: mapping a navigation path for the robot to traverse; detecting the hazardous condition along the navigation path based on output from the plurality of sensors; and instructing at least one action by the robot other than following the navigation path, wherein the at least one action at least partially addresses the hazardous condition.