Moving robot and control method thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11547261-B2
Application number	US-201716096872-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 29, 2017
Priority date	Apr 29, 2016
Publication date	Jan 10, 2023
Grant date	Jan 10, 2023

Abstract

Disclosed are a moving robot and a control method thereof, and the moving robot performs cleaning by moving based on a map and is able to determine, based on a global localization function, the current position on the map no matter where the moving robot is positioned, so that the moving robot is capable of recognizing the current position on the map, and, even when the position of the moving robot is arbitrarily changed, the moving robot is able to recognize the position thereof again and move to an exact designated area, so that the moving robot is capable of perform designated cleaning and move rapidly and accurately, thereby performing cleaning efficiently.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A moving robot, comprising:
a movable main body;
a travel drive unit having a plurality of drive wheels to move the main body;
an image acquisition unit configured to acquire images of surroundings;
a storage configured to store the images acquired by the image acquisition unit and a map of a travel area; and
a controller configured to recognize a current position to control the travel drive unit and control the moving robot to perform cleaning, wherein the controller is further configured to:
when a cleaning command is received, determine whether a position on the map and the current position match according to whether a position of the main body is jumped while the moving robot is driving continuously;
recover the position on the map to the jumped current position of the main body; and
move to a designated area in response to the cleaning command and control the moving robot to perform cleaning.

2. The moving robot of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to:
when the position on the map and the current position do not match each other, extract features from the acquisition images received from the image acquisition unit; and
based on the features, determine one of a plurality of areas included in the map to be the current position.

3. The moving robot of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to:
set a path from the current position to the designated area; and
control the travel drive unit to move to the designated area and perform cleaning of the designated area.

4. The moving robot of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to:
when the designated area set to be a plurality of designated areas, determine whether a priority area is set;
perform cleaning of the priority area; and
perform leaning of other designated areas.

5. The moving robot of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to, when the designated area is a plurality of designated areas, perform cleaning of the plurality of designated areas sequentially in a set order of cleaning.

6. The moving robot of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to:
when the designated area is a plurality of designated areas, move to a designated area close to the current position and perform cleaning; and
perform cleaning according to ascending order of moving distance between the designated areas.

7. The moving robot of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to:
when the map is not stored in the storage, analyze the acquisition images acquired during traveling in the travel area;
separate the travel area into a plurality of areas; and
generate the map.

8. The moving robot of claim 1 ,
wherein the controller is further configured to transmit the map to an external terminal that inputs the cleaning command, and
wherein the external terminal displays the map on a screen, and inputs the cleaning command with respect to at least one of a plurality of areas included in the map.

9. The moving robot of claim 8 , wherein the external terminal transmits the cleaning command by setting at least one of the plurality of areas included in the map as the designated area.

10. The moving robot of claim 8 , wherein the external terminal sets a new area as the designated area, irrespective of the plurality of areas included in the map, through a provided input means and transmits the cleaning command.

11. The moving robot of claim 8 ,
wherein the controller is further configured to transmit data on a position of the moving robot and a cleaning state to the external terminal, and
wherein the external terminal displays the position of the moving robot and the cleaning state on the map based on the data received from the moving robot.

12. The moving robot of claim 1 ,
wherein the travel drive unit further comprises a switch which is installed on the drive wheels, and which is operated by a weight of the main body applied to the drive wheels, and
wherein the controller is further configured to determine whether the main body is raised off a floor and thereby the position thereof is jumped based on operation of the switch.

13. The moving robot of claim 2 , wherein the controller comprises:
an area separation unit configured to separate the travel area into a plurality of small areas or a plurality of large areas by a predetermined criterion; and
a recognition unit configured to extract at least one recognition feature from an image acquired at an unknown current position, calculate recognition descriptors respectively corresponding to the recognition features, and compute a feature distribution for each small area or large area and the recognition descriptor by a predetermined estimation rule, thereby determining any one area to which the main body belongs as the current position.

14. The moving robot of claim 13 ,
wherein the area separation unit is further configured to, by a predetermined criterion, separate the travel area into a plurality of large areas into which the plurality of small areas is grouped, and
wherein the recognition unit is further configured to:
determine a large area in which the current position is included, by computing a feature distribution for each large area and the recognition descriptor by a predetermined superordinate estimation rule; and
determining a small area in which the current position is included, by computing a feature distribution for each small area among a plurality of small areas included in the determined large area and the recognition descriptor by the predetermined estimation rule.

15. The moving robot of claim 14 , wherein the recognition unit is further configured to determine the current position by calculating correlation between a plurality of positions included in the determined small area.

16. The moving robot of claim 13 , wherein the controller comprises a learning unit configured to:
extract features from images acquired at a plurality of positions;
calculate descriptors respectively corresponding to the features; and
calculate a feature distribution for each small area or each large area by a predetermined learning rule.

17. A control method of a moving robot, comprising:
based on a map of a travel area separated into a plurality of areas, set at least one of the plurality of areas as a designated area and receive a cleaning command;
determine a current position in the plurality of areas on the map;
after a determination as to whether a position of the main body is jumped while the moving robot is driving continuously, when the current position does not match a position on the map, recover the position on the map to the current position of the main body;
set a moving path from the current position to the designated area and move to the designated area; and
perform cleaning of the designated area.

18. The control method of claim 17 ,
wherein, when the designated area is a plurality of designated areas, a priority area among the plurality of designated areas is cleaned and then the rest of the plurality of designated areas is cleaned, and
wherein, when an order of cleaning of the plurality of designated areas is set, the designated areas are cleaned sequentially according to the order of cleaning.

19. The control method of claim 17 , wherein, when the designated area is a plurality of designated areas, the moving robot moves to a designated area close to the current position and perform cleaning, and performs cleaning according to ascending order of moving distance between th

Assignees

• Lg Electronics Inc

Inventors

• Choe Suuk

Classifications

• B25J9/162

  Mobile manipulator, movable base with manipulator arm mounted on it · CPC title

• A47L2201/04

  Automatic control of the travelling movement; Automatic obstacle detection · CPC title

• B25J9/16

  Program controls (total factory control, i.e. centrally controlling a plurality of machines, G05B19/418) · CPC title

• B25J19/02

  Sensing devices · CPC title

• B25J9/00

  Program-controlled manipulators · CPC title