Smartphone-Guided Robot Terminal for Low-Cost Perception Control
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current robots are prohibitively expensive due to the need for expensive computational platforms and high-quality sensors and communication capabilities for robust perception and task control, making them inaccessible to many applications.
Innovation Solution
Equipping robots with a mobile communication terminal that includes sensors and processors to utilize existing sensors and processing capabilities, leveraging the mobile communication terminal as the primary computational resource for low-cost robot terminals, connected via an I/O interface for navigation and control.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If robots are equipped with extensive sensor suites, computational abilities, and communication channels, then perception and control capabilities are improved, but cost increases making robots prohibitively expensive
Solution Approach 1:
The system is divided into two segments: a mobile communication terminal (smartphone) that provides sensing and computational capabilities, and a simple robot terminal that provides actuation. This segmentation allows the expensive sensing/computation functions to be performed by the smartphone while the robot hardware remains inexpensive.
Solution Approach 2:
The mobile communication terminal serves multiple functions: it acts as both the control device and the sensing platform. The smartphone's existing sensors (camera, microphone, accelerometer, GPS, etc.) are repurposed for robot navigation and perception, eliminating the need for dedicated robot sensors.
2Reliability
If robots use dedicated computational platforms and high-quality sensors, then robust perception is achieved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The mobile communication terminal acts as an intermediary between the simple robot terminal and the environment. It captures sensor data from the environment, processes it using its computational platform, and sends control commands back to the robot, thereby enabling robust perception without adding complexity to the robot itself.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of equipping the robot with its own expensive sensors and computational platform, the system uses a copy of these capabilities in the mobile communication terminal. The smartphone replicates the sensing and processing functions that would otherwise require dedicated robot components.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
A mobile communication terminal device may include one or more image sensors, configured to generate image sensor data representing an environment of the mobile communication terminal device; one or more processors, configured to receive the image sensor data from the one or more image sensors; implement at least one artificial neural network to receive the image sensor data as an artificial neural network input and output an artificial neural network output representing a detected environment parameter of the environment of the mobile communication terminal; determine a navigation instruction based on the artificial neural network output; and send a signal representing the navigation instruction to a robot terminal via a communication interface.