Robot Cleaner Movable Brush Assembly to Prevent Side-Brush Jamming
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional robot cleaners with round shapes have a limited cleaning area due to shorter roller brushes, and side brushes often get stuck or push dust away, degrading performance and potentially halting the cleaning process.
Innovation Solution
The robot cleaner features a 'V'-shaped brush assembly with movable cleaning tools and a variable inlet area, allowing for efficient dust collection and guidance of foreign materials into a smaller inlet with enhanced suction force, preventing interference and improving cleaning efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If side brushes are installed to extend the cleaning area, then the cleaning area is expanded, but the side brushes may get stuck on obstacles or push dust away, degrading cleaning performance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the side brushes from the robot cleaner structure. Instead of using side brushes to extend the cleaning area, the invention uses a different approach where the main roller brush is positioned to contact the floor at multiple points, achieving extended cleaning coverage without the harmful effects of side brushes getting stuck or pushing dust away
Solution Approach 2:
Rather than adding side brushes outward from the body to expand cleaning area, the invention inverts the approach by positioning the main roller brush to contact the floor at multiple points along the bottom surface, effectively using the main brush structure to achieve what side brushes were intended to do, but without their drawbacks
2Device complexity
If the robot cleaner has a round shape with a standard roller brush, then the structure is simple, but the cleaning area covered by the roller brush is smaller than the area passed by the robot
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extends the roller brush in the vertical dimension by positioning it to contact the floor at multiple points (front, center, and rear portions of the bottom surface). This multi-point contact arrangement effectively increases the cleaning area without changing the horizontal footprint or adding complex side structures, thus maintaining structural simplicity while improving cleaning coverage
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 design effectively sweeps and absorbs dust across a wider area without getting stuck, maintaining cleaning efficiency and preventing dust from being pushed outside, even with large or irregularly shaped debris.
Implementation Method 1
a fan motor arranged in the main unit for producing a suction force
Implementation Method 2
a cyclone separator arranged in the main unit for separating foreign materials from air which has been sucked in by the suction force
Data Source
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AI summary
A robot cleaner that sweeps dust on the floor toward its center and absorbs the dust through a small-area inlet with a strong suction force, by a cleaning tool that integrates functions of side brushes and a main brush into one. The present disclosure also provides a robot cleaner that enables a large-diameter foreign material to be guided to and effectively absorbed through the inlet without interference by a cleaning tool. The robot cleaner includes a main unit including a fan motor and a dust collector and having an inlet arranged on a base to absorb foreign materials, and a cleaning tool arranged in the bottom of the base, extending to a front side of the base from the inlet and guiding a foreign material on a floor to a side of the inlet, wherein the cleaning tool is arranged to be movable by an external force.