Robot Cleaner Path Planning with Sub-Area Map Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Robot cleaners face inefficiencies in calculating full travel paths and maintaining optimal performance as the cleaning area increases, requiring significant memory and time to regenerate maps, leading to prolonged calculation times and reduced cleaning efficiency.
Innovation Solution
A robot cleaner divides the cleaning area into sub-areas, calculating full paths based on connection points between sub-areas and travel paths within each sub-area, allowing for efficient path updates without regenerating the entire map, using a control unit that includes modules for area division, path generation, and connection point calculation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the robot cleaner uses a large capacity memory to store the map for cleaning the whole area, then the robot can calculate the full path and shortest distance, but the device complexity and storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The cleaning area is divided into multiple sub-areas, and the map is segmented into corresponding sub-maps. Each sub-map stores only the path information for its specific sub-area rather than the entire cleaning area. The control unit calculates the full path by sequentially connecting paths through connection points between sub-areas, thereby achieving complete path planning without requiring large capacity memory to store the entire area map.
2Area of stationary object
If the cleaning area increases, then the robot can cover more space, but the calculation time for full path and shortest distance increases
Solution Approach 1:
The large cleaning area is divided into multiple smaller sub-areas, and path calculation is performed separately for each sub-area. This segmentation allows the robot to calculate paths for small sub-areas quickly without the computational burden of calculating the entire large area path at once, thereby maintaining fast calculation speed even as the total cleaning area increases.
Solution Approach 2:
The map is pre-divided into sub-areas with predetermined connection points between them. When path planning is needed, the control unit simply retrieves pre-stored path information for each sub-area and connects them through the connection points, rather than performing complex full-area path calculation from scratch. This preliminary organization of spatial information significantly reduces real-time calculation time.
3Reliability
If the robot regenerates the whole map when the cleaning area extends, then the robot can maintain accurate path information, but the calculation time and processing load increase
Solution Approach 1:
When the cleaning area extends to a new sub-area, only the map for that specific new sub-area is generated and added to the existing set of sub-maps. The control unit identifies connection points between the new sub-area and existing sub-areas, then connects the new sub-area path to the full path through these connection points. This incremental map updates approach maintains map accuracy while avoiding the time-consuming process of regenerating the entire map.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are a robot cleaner and a method for controlling the same. The robot cleaner and method of the present invention involve dividing the whole area to be cleaned into sub-areas, and easily calculating a full path using travel paths in the sub-areas and connection points between sub-areas, and in the event the whole area to be cleaned is extended or an area which has not been cleaned is found, do not involve regenerating the whole map for cleaning, but rather easily updating the full path using the pre-stored travel path in the sub-areas and the connection points between sub-areas.