Mobile Robot Spatial Mapping to Avoid Recleaning Paths
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous robotic devices face challenges in efficiently navigating and avoiding repetitive tasks by accurately determining their location within their environment, particularly in commercial and residential settings, where they need to distinguish between cleaned and unclean areas.
Innovation Solution
A robotic device equipped with a chassis, wheels, motors, a suspension system, a controller, sensors, a camera, and processors that captures spatial data, generates a spatial model of the surroundings, and updates its movement path to exclude previously cleaned areas, using alignment of spatial data and sensor measurements to infer its location and optimize navigation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the robotic device uses basic navigation without spatial modeling, then the device complexity is reduced, but the location determination accuracy deteriorates causing repetitive tasks
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary spatial mapping of the environment before execution of tasks. The processor generates a comprehensive spatial model of the surroundings including layout, obstacles, and navigable areas in advance, allowing the robotic device to determine its location accurately without real-time complex computations during task execution.
2Measurement precision
If the robotic device continuously maps the environment in real-time, then the location accuracy is improved, but the processing time and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The spatial model is generated in advance during an initial mapping phase or when the environment is static, storing the environmental layout for later use. During task execution, the device only needs to compare sensor data against the pre-generated model to determine location, significantly reducing processing time and avoiding continuous real-time mapping.
3Productivity
If the robotic device uses simple path following, then the navigation system is simpler, but the device cannot avoid already cleaned areas leading to repetitive tasks
Solution Approach 1:
The system continuously monitors the robotic device's position against the spatial model and the planned movement path. When the device detects that it has returned to an already cleaned area through sensor feedback comparing current spatial data with the stored model, the processor automatically updates the movement path to exclude the already cleaned region, preventing repetitive tasks and improving cleaning efficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a robotic device, including: a chassis; a set of wheels; one or more motors to drive the set of wheels; a suspension system; a controller in communication with the one or more motors; at least one sensor; a camera; one or more processors; a tangible, non-transitory, machine readable medium storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processors effectuate operations including: capturing, with the camera, spatial data of surroundings; generating, with the one or more processors, a spatial model of the surroundings based on the spatial data; generating, with the one or more processors, a movement path based on the spatial model of the surroundings; inferring, with the one or more processors, a location of the robotic device; and updating, with the one or more processors, the movement path to exclude locations of the movement path that the robotic device has previously been located.