Omnidirectional Robot Cleaner Navigation in Narrow Spaces
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Robot cleaners face challenges in efficiently navigating around obstacles and escaping narrow areas due to their limited directional movement capabilities, which can lead to increased battery consumption and delayed cleaning times.
Innovation Solution
A robot cleaner equipped with multi-directional moving wheels and a rotatable sensor that determines a traveling route to avoid obstacles without rotating the body unit, allowing for forward, rearward, leftward, rightward, diagonal, and rotational movement, enabling effective obstacle avoidance and navigation in confined spaces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the robot cleaner rotates its body to avoid obstacles, then it can change direction, but it increases battery consumption and delays cleaning time
Solution Approach 1:
The robot divides its movement capability into two independent parts: body orientation (sensor rotation) and body displacement (wheel movement). The sensor rotates independently to detect obstacles and calculate optimal paths, while the wheels execute movement in the calculated direction without requiring the entire body to rotate, thus reducing energy consumption while maintaining directional adaptability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new dimension of movement by enabling the robot to change its position in any direction (not just forward) through multi-directional wheel capabilities. This allows the robot to move laterally, diagonally, or backward without rotating its body, adding spatial flexibility while avoiding the energy cost of body rotation
2Adaptability or versatility
If the robot cleaner rotates its body to avoid obstacles, then it can navigate around obstacles, but it increases the time required for cleaning
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor rotates in advance to detect obstacles and calculate the optimal avoidance path before the robot begins moving. This preliminary detection and path calculation allow the robot to execute efficient wheel-based maneuvers without time-consuming body rotations, reducing overall obstacle avoidance time while maintaining effective navigation capability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic movement control where the robot can rapidly change its movement direction by controlling the wheels to move in different directions (forward, backward, laterally, diagonally) without the inertia and time penalty of rotating the entire body. This dynamic wheel-based direction changing significantly reduces the time required for obstacle avoidance maneuvers
3Device complexity
If the robot cleaner uses traditional wheels, then the structure is simple, but it cannot move freely in narrow areas
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs dynamically controllable multi-directional wheels that can change their rolling direction and movement vector independently. Each wheel can move the robot forward, backward, laterally, or diagonally by adjusting its rotation axis and rolling direction, enabling the robot to navigate narrow and confined spaces with high maneuverability while maintaining a relatively simple wheel structure compared to complex robotic mechanisms
Data Source
AI summary
A robot cleaner and a traveling algorithm of the robot cleaner having wheels capable of moving in all directions to have enhanced traveling ability in various directions includes a body unit, a sensor provided to be rotatable with respect to the body unit to sense obstacles, a multi-directional moving wheel provided at a lower portion of the body unit to move the body unit in various directions, and a controller configured to determine a traveling route of the robot cleaner to avoid the detected obstacles and control the multi-directional moving wheel when the traveling route is determined so that the robot cleaner moves to the determined traveling route in a state where the body unit is not rotated.