Cleaning Robot Hand-Gesture Navigation for Targeted Floor Cleaning
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional cleaning robots lack the ability to recognize user intention and require significant user labor, as they often rely on preset patterns and sensors, making them less intuitive and less efficient in cleaning specific areas or following user commands.
Innovation Solution
A cleaning robot equipped with an imager and controller that recognizes hand movements or markers to adjust its cleaning path and operation, allowing direct user control through interactive modes, reducing labor and improving cleaning efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If a cleaning robot uses preset traveling patterns and sensor-based obstacle detection, then it can operate autonomously without user intervention, but it cannot recognize user intention and requires significant user labor for manipulation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an imager as an intermediary device that captures images of the user's hand or markers. The controller processes these images to recognize user intention, serving as a mediator between the user and the robot's movement system. This allows the robot to understand user commands without direct physical manipulation while maintaining autonomous operation capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical remote control system with an optical recognition system. Instead of requiring users to manipulate physical controls, the system uses an imager to capture visual information (hand gestures or markers) and converts this into control commands, substituting mechanical interaction with optical-field interaction.
2Productivity
If a vacuum cleaner increases suction power, then cleaning performance improves, but the size and weight of the main body increase, requiring more user labor
Solution Approach 1:
The cleaning robot is designed to move and position itself autonomously using its own driving system, eliminating the need for users to physically move the device. The robot services itself by navigating to cleaning areas and returning to charging stations without human assistance, thereby decoupling cleaning performance from user physical effort.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical pushing system with an autonomous electromagnetic driving system. The robot uses motors and control systems to move itself, substituting the mechanical effort previously required from users with an automated electromechanical system that can operate independently.
3Extent of automation
If a cleaning robot uses preset traveling patterns, then it can operate autonomously, but it is impossible to recognize the user's intention and adapt to specific cleaning areas
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces dynamic adaptability by enabling the robot to switch between preset traveling patterns and user-directed movement based on real-time image recognition. The system dynamically adjusts its behavior by recognizing user hand gestures or marker positions and modifying its travel path accordingly, combining autonomous operation with adaptive responsiveness to user intention.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a feedback loop where the imager continuously captures user hand or marker position, the controller processes this visual feedback to determine user intention, and the robot adjusts its movement in response. This closed-loop feedback system enables the robot to recognize and adapt to user intention while maintaining autonomous operation.
Data Source
AI summary
A cleaning robot includes a main body, a moving assembly to move the main body, a cleaning tool provided at a bottom part of the main body to collect foreign substances on a floor, an imager to collect images around the main body and a controller to recognize motion of a hand by performing image processing of the collected images, identify a control command corresponding to the motion of the hand, plan a moving direction and a moving distance of the main body as movement information based on the control command, and control operations of the moving assembly and the cleaning tool based on the planned movement information. Since the user directly controls movement of the cleaning robot, it is possible to improve interactivity between human and cleaning robot, reduce the user's labor and increase convenience.