Mobile Robot Route Planning With Obstacle Certainty Mapping

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing route planning systems for mobile robots do not effectively account for the varying characteristics and reconfigurability of obstacles, leading to inefficient movement routes that are unnecessarily long.

Innovation Solution

A route planning system that utilizes an environmental map indicating the location and degree of certainty for each obstacle, allowing the system to plan routes that exclude obstacles with low certainty, thereby reducing movement distance and time.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If all obstacles indicated in the map are avoided when planning a movement route, then the reliability of obstacle avoidance is improved, but the movement distance becomes longer

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveobstacle avoidance reliabilityVSAvoidmovement distance
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLength of moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The patent changes the parameter of obstacle certainty from a binary presence/absence state to a continuous degree of certainty value. By evaluating obstacles based on their degree of certainty rather than simply avoiding all mapped obstacles, the system can selectively avoid only those obstacles with high certainty, thereby shortening movement distance while maintaining reliable obstacle avoidance for certain obstacles.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

2Measurement precision

If the mobile robot performs fine detection processing on all excluded obstacles, then the measurement precision of obstacle detection is improved, but the detection time and computational load increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveobstacle detection precisionVSAvoiddetection time
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies local quality by performing fine detection processing only on excluded obstacles with high degree of certainty, rather than uniformly applying fine detection to all obstacles. This selective approach concentrates detection resources on critical obstacles, improving detection precision where needed while reducing overall detection time and computational load.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

3Length of moving object

If the system excludes obstacles with low degree of certainty from the movement route, then the movement distance is shortened, but the risk of collision with actual obstacles increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemovement distanceVSAvoidcollision risk
Core Design Contradiction:
Length of moving objectVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements feedback by continuously monitoring the movement environment and updating the degree of certainty for excluded obstacles based on actual detection results. When an excluded obstacle is detected during movement, the system updates its certainty level and adjusts the route accordingly, thereby reducing collision risk while maintaining shortened movement paths.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

Data Source

PatentEP4177695B1Route planning system, mobile robot, route planning program, and mobile robot control program
Publication Date: 2025.01.29 OMRON CORP
  • EP4177695B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4177695B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP4177695B1 patent drawingFigure 3~4

AI summary

A route planning system includes an obtaining unit configured to obtain an environmental map indicating, for any obstacle, a location and a degree of certainty that the obstacle is present at that location,, a planning unit configured to plan a movement route along which a mobile robot moves, excluding any obstacles in the environmental map, that have a degree of certainty that does not satisfy a predetermined standard, and an output unit configured to output route information, which is information on the planned movement route, to the mobile robot. A mobile robot configured to obtain the route information from the route planning system includes a movement control unit configured to move based on the route information; and a detection unit configured to detect any surrounding obstacles while the robot moves under the control of the movement control unit, and the detection unit executes detection processing that is finer than regular detection processing, on any obstacle included in the excluded object information.