Robot Cleaner Floor-State Sensing for Adaptive Suction Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Robot cleaners face challenges in efficiently controlling suction force and traveling routes to optimize cleaning time, especially on varying floor types, leading to increased battery consumption and reduced reliability in floor state detection.
Innovation Solution
A robot cleaner equipped with sensors to detect load on wheels and brushes, combined with acceleration information, adjusts suction force and traveling route based on floor state, prioritizing soft or hard floor regions to enhance cleaning efficiency and battery life.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If suction force is increased to improve cleaning performance, then cleaning effectiveness is improved, but battery consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The suction force is dynamically adjusted based on detected floor type. The controller increases suction force when soft floors are detected and decreases it on hard floors, making the suction power adaptive rather than static. This resolves the contradiction by providing high cleaning effectiveness only when needed (on soft floors) while conserving battery energy on hard floors.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the suction force parameter according to the detected floor state. By detecting floor type and相应ly adjusting the suction force parameter, the system optimizes the balance between cleaning effectiveness and energy consumption, avoiding unnecessary high power consumption on hard floors while maintaining strong suction on soft floors.
2Reliability
If floor state detection reliability is improved by using multiple sensors, then detection accuracy is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple sensing approaches (load sensor on wheels, load sensor on brush, and acceleration sensor) into a unified floor state detection system. The controller integrates information from all these sensors to comprehensively determine floor state, improving detection reliability through multi-source data fusion while managing system complexity through centralized control.
Solution Approach 2:
The controller acts as an intermediary that processes and integrates information from multiple sensors. It receives data from wheel load sensors, brush load sensors, and acceleration sensors, then synthesizes this information to make accurate floor state decisions, thereby improving reliability without requiring each individual sensor to be overly complex.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution enables efficient cleaning by accurately determining floor states, optimizing suction force and route control, thereby increasing operation time and reliability of the robot cleaner.
Implementation Method 1
a traveling portion configured to include not only a traveling wheel to move a main body, but also a wheel motor to provide the traveling wheel with drive power
Implementation Method 2
a suction module to suction the scattered dust or foreign substances
Implementation Method 3
a sensing portion configured to detect load applied to the traveling wheel
Implementation Method 4
The robot cleaner may further include an acceleration sensor to detect acceleration of the main body
Data Source
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AI summary
A robot cleaner and a method for controlling the same are disclosed, which perform efficient cleaning by controlling a suction force or traveling route of the robot cleaner. The robot cleaner detects load applied to wheels of the robot cleaner so as to increase reliability and accuracy in floor state decision, thereby recognizing a floor state. The robot cleaner recognizes a floor state by combining load applied to wheels of the robot cleaner, load applied to brushes, and acceleration information of the robot cleaner with one another in a complementary manner, thereby increasing accuracy in floor state decision. The robot cleaner includes a traveling portion configured to include a traveling wheel to move a main body, and a wheel motor to provide the traveling wheel with drive power, a cleaning portion configured to include a brush module formed at a lower part of the main body to scatter dust or foreign substances accumulated on a floor on which the main body travels, and a suction module to suction the scattered dust or foreign substances, and a controller configured to determine a state of the floor, and control a suction force of the suction module and a traveling route of the main body according to the determined floor state.