Methods and systems for complete coverage of a surface by an autonomous robot

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016101523-A1
Application number	US-201514880610-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 12, 2015
Priority date	Nov 6, 2009
Publication date	Apr 14, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A robot configured to navigate a surface, the robot comprising a movement mechanism; a logical map representing data about the surface and associating locations with one or more properties observed during navigation; an initialization module configured to establish an initial pose comprising an initial location and an initial orientation; a region covering module configured to cause the robot to move so as to cover a region; an edge—following module configured to cause the robot to follow unfollowed edges; a control module configured to invoke region covering on a first region defined at least in part based at least part of the initial pose, to invoke region covering on least one additional region, to invoke edge-following, and to invoke region covering cause the mapping module to mark followed edges as followed, and cause a third region covering on regions discovered during edge-following.

First claim

1 . A mobile device configured to navigate a surface, the mobile device comprising
a movement mechanism configured to move the mobile device from a first pose comprising a first location and a first orientation to a second pose comprising a second location and a second orientation; a mapping module configured to update a map representing data about the surface, the map associating locations with one or more properties, the properties comprising properties sufficient to indicate “unexplored”, “traversed”, “edge”, and “occupied”; an initialization module configured to establish an initial pose comprising an initial location and an initial orientation; a first region-covering module configured to cause the movement mechanism to move the mobile device so as to cover a first region defined at least in part based on at least one component of the initial pose and further configured to cause the mapping module to update the map; a second region-covering module configured to cause the movement mechanism to move the mobile device so as to cover respective of at least one additional regions and to cause the mapping module to update the map, wherein the first region and the at least one additional regions are non-overlapping; an edge-following module configured to identify one or more unfollowed edges, cause the movement mechanism to move the mobile device so as to follow respective unfollowed edges, cause the mapping module to mark followed edges as followed, and cause a third region-covering module to cause the movement mechanism to move the mobile device so as to cover one or more edge-discovered regions if such regions are discovered.

2 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein each of the modules comprises a computerized system.

3 . The mobile device of claim 1 , further comprising an additional region-covering module comprising a computerized system and configured to identify map locations comprising a frontier between “traversed” and “unexplored” locations and, if one or more such frontiers are identified, to cause the movement mechanism to move the mobile device so as to cover a region defined at least in part based on at least one such frontier and to cause the mapping module to update the map.

4 . (canceled)

5 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the movement mechanism comprises one or more wheels.

6 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the movement mechanism comprises one or more tracks.

7 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the movement mechanism comprises at least a rudder component and at least a propulsion component.

8 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the mapping module associates a location with one or more properties based at least in part on information from one or more sensors associated with the mobile device.

9 . The mobile device of claim 8 , wherein the mapping module associates a location with “traversed” if the sensors indicate that the mobile device is in or has moved through that location.

10 . The mobile device of claim 8 , wherein the mapping module associates a location with “occupied” if the sensors indicate that mobile device cannot move into that location.

11 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the mapping module associates a location with “edge” if an adjacent location is “occupied”.

12 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the mapping module associates a location with “unexplored” if the location is adjacent to a “traversed” location and is not “occupied” or “traversed”.

13 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein a region is covered if at least 90% of what is accessible to the mobile device is associated with a “traversed” location on the map.

14 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein a region is covered if at least 80% of what is accessible to the mobile device is associated with a “traversed” location on the map.

15 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein a region has a definition which is independent of properties of the surface.

16 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein each region is a proper subset of the surface.

17 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein a region has static dimensions.

18 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein a region has at least one dynamic dimension.

19 . The mobile device of claim 18 , wherein a region has at least one dynamic dimension determined at least in part by at least one dimension of a second region.

20 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein a first region and a second region are non-overlapping if less than 10% of the first region is in the second region.

Assignees

• Irobot Corp

Inventors

• Stout Michael S
• Brisson Gabriel Francis
• Di Bernardo Enrico
• Pirjanian Paolo
• Goel Dhiraj
• Case James Philip
• Dooley Michael

Classifications

• Y10S901/01

  Mobile robot · CPC title

• B25J9/163

  learning, adaptive, model based, rule based expert control · CPC title

• B25J5/00

  Manipulators mounted on wheels or on carriages (B25J1/00 takes precedence; programme-controlled manipulators B25J9/00 {; vehicle aspects B60, B62, e.g. remote-controlled steering for motor vehicles B62D1/24; control of position of vehicles G05D1/00}) · CPC title

• B25J5/005

  mounted on endless tracks or belts · CPC title

• Y10S901/46

  Sensing device · CPC title