Moving body, waste collection system, and supervision apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2024199321-A1
Application number	US-202218287037-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 11, 2022
Priority date	Apr 23, 2021
Publication date	Jun 20, 2024
Grant date	—

Abstract

A waste collection system includes a movable waste box to automatically travel by using a sensor group including cameras, a sonar, a millimeter wave radar, and a LiDAR, and a supervision apparatus to manage the movable waste box. The movable waste box autonomously moves by following path information indicating a path. The movable waste box includes a waste box to accept waste a person who is present partway on a path has. The supervision apparatus includes a path information generating unit to generate the path information and to transmit the path information to the movable waste box.

First claim

1 . A moving body to collect waste, the moving body comprising:
control circuitry to cause the moving body to autonomously move by following path information indicating a path; and a waste box to accept waste a person who is present, partway on the path, on the path or along the path has, wherein the waste box is divided for each type of waste and classified into a plurality of separate waste boxes in which an accommodation capacity of waste is changed by control, and the control circuitry controls the accommodation capacity of waste of each of the separate waste boxes.

2 . The moving body according to claim 1 , wherein
the moving body further includes a human sensor to detect a movement of a person, and the control circuitry decreases a speed of the moving body when the human sensor detects a state in which a person approaches the moving body.

3 . The moving body according to claim 2 , wherein
the control circuitry increases the speed of the moving body when the human sensor detects a state in which a person goes away from the moving body.

4 . The moving body according to claim 1 , wherein
the control circuitry has a storage device to store a plurality of pieces of path information, and selects path information from among the plurality of pieces of path information in accordance with an amount of waste accumulated in the waste box.

5 . The moving body according to claim 1 , wherein
the moving body includes an image-taking device to take an image of vicinity, and the control circuitry extracts, by using a learned model for extracting waste from an image where the waste appears, waste from an image taken by the image-taking device and, when the waste is extracted, outputs a waste extraction signal.

6 . The moving body according to claim 5 , wherein
the control circuitry transmits, as the waste extraction signal, an extraction notification for notification of extraction of the waste to a supervision apparatus to manage the moving body.

7 . (canceled)

8 . The moving body according to claim 5 , wherein
the learned model is able to extract a person having waste from the image, the control circuitry extracts the person having waste from the image by the image-taking device in vicinity of the path indicated by the path information by using the learned model, and when the person having waste is extracted from the image, the control circuitry causes the moving body to leave the path and approach the person having the waste.

9 . The moving body according to claim 5 , wherein
the moving body further includes a waste box monitoring device to monitor the waste box, and the control circuitry determines whether waste with a position changed from inside the waste box to outside the waste box is present by using a monitoring result of the waste box monitoring device.

10 . The moving body according to claim 9 , wherein
when determining that waste with the position changed from inside the waste box to outside the waste box is present, the control circuitry transmits an alert notification to a supervision apparatus to manage the moving body.

11 .- 12 . (canceled)

13 . The moving body according to claim 1 , wherein
on each of the plurality of separate waste boxes, the type of waste is displayed.

14 . The moving body according to claim 1 , wherein
the control circuitry issues an alert based on a detection result of a sensor to detect at least either of weight and accommodation capacity of waste accumulated in the waste box.

15 . (canceled)

16 . A waste collection system comprising:
a moving body including a waste box to autonomously move by following path information indicating a path and to accept waste a person who is present, partway of the path, on the path or along the path has; and a supervision apparatus to generate the path information and to transmit the path information to the moving body, wherein the supervision apparatus generates the path information based on a facility including a shop arranged in an area where the moving body is scheduled to move.

17 .- 29 . (canceled)

30 . A waste collection system comprising:
a moving body including a waste box to autonomously move by following path information indicating a path and to accept waste a person who is present, partway of the path, on the path or along the path has; and a supervision apparatus to generate the path information and to transmit the path information to the moving body, wherein the supervision apparatus includes a storage device to store waste emission information indicating waste emission situations at a plurality of locations in an area where the moving body is scheduled to move, and generates the path information based on the waste emission information stored in the storage device.

31 . A waste collection system comprising:
a plurality of moving bodies each including a waste box to autonomously move by following path information indicating a path and to accept waste a person who is present, partway of the path, on the path or along the path has; and a supervision apparatus to generate the path information and to transmit the path information to the moving bodies, wherein the supervision apparatus generates the path information for each of the moving bodies, thereby covering waste collection in a scheduled area where arrangement of the plurality of moving bodies is scheduled.

32 . A waste collection system comprising:
a moving body including a waste box to autonomously move by following path information indicating a path and to accept waste a person who is present, partway of the path, on the path or along the path has; and a supervision apparatus to generate the path information and to transmit the path information to the moving body, wherein the moving body transmits an excess signal to the supervision apparatus when an accommodation capacity of waste in the waste box exceeds a threshold value, and the supervision apparatus transmits a movement destination instruction for making an instruction of a movement destination to a transmission moving body as the moving body transmitting the excess signal to cause the transmission moving body to move to the movement destination and, to replace the transmission moving body by a moving body different from the transmission moving body, transmits path information identical to the path information transmitted to the transmission moving body to the different moving body.

33 . The waste collection system according to claim 16 , wherein
the supervision apparatus generates the path information based on a stream of people in an area where the moving body is scheduled to move.

34 . A supervision apparatus comprising:
processing circuitry to: generate human stream information indicating a stream of people; and to generate, to a moving body to autonomously move by following path information indicating a path and to include a waste box to accept waste a person who is present partway on the path has, the path information by using the human stream information generated, and to transmit the generated path information to the moving body, wherein the processing circuitry provides priority to each path based on the human stream information of each path of a plurality of paths in an area where the moving body is scheduled to move and, by using the priority, generates the path information in which a passing order of each path is scheduled.

35 . A moving body to collect waste, the moving body comprising:
control ci

Assignees

• Mitsubishi Electric Corp

Inventors

• Chiba Yohei
• Yoshida Michinori

Classifications

• G01C21/20

  Instruments for performing navigational calculations (G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence) · CPC title

• B65F2210/165

  Remote controls · CPC title

• B65F1/0046

  the partitions being movable, e.g. for varying the volume of the compartments · CPC title

• B65F1/004

  the receptacles being divided in compartments by partitions · CPC title

• G08G1/202

  Dispatching vehicles on the basis of a location, e.g. taxi dispatching · CPC title