Systems and methods for determining a potential failure or other status of a robotic device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9928487-B2
Application number	US-201615269649-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 19, 2016
Priority date	Feb 7, 2012
Publication date	Mar 27, 2018
Grant date	Mar 27, 2018

Abstract

Methods and systems for proactively preventing hazardous or other situations in a robot-cloud interaction are provided. An example method includes receiving information associated with task logs for a plurality of robotic devices. The task logs may include information associated with tasks performed by the plurality of robotic devices. The method may also include a computing system determining information associated with hazardous situations based on the information associated with the task logs. For example, the hazardous situations may comprise situations associated with failures of one or more components of the plurality of robotic devices. According to the method, information associated with a contextual situation of a first robotic device may be determined, and when the information associated with the contextual situation is consistent with information associated with the one or more hazardous situations, an alert indicating a potential failure of the first robotic device may be provided.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving task logs for a plurality of robotic devices, wherein the task logs comprise information indicative of tasks performed by the plurality of robotic devices, wherein the information indicative of tasks performed by the plurality of robotic devices comprise indications of whether individual tasks were completed by respective robotic devices with an amount of error that satisfies a particular amount of tolerance;
determining, using a computing system and based on the task logs, situations involving unexpected operation of a component of the plurality of robotic devices, wherein the situations involving unexpected operation of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprise situations in which individual tasks were completed by respective robotic devices with an amount of error that does not satisfy the particular amount of tolerance, and wherein the component of the plurality of robotic devices has an operational range;
determining, based on the situations, an updated operational range for the component of the plurality of robotic devices; and
updating the operational range of the component of the plurality of robotic devices to be the updated operational range.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the updated operational range comprises determining an updated operational range that decreases the likelihood of future situations involving unexpected operation of the component of the plurality of robotic devices.

3. The method of claim 1 :
wherein determining the situations comprises determining operational values of the component of the plurality of robotic devices when the situations occurred, and
wherein determining the updated operational range for the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises determining a reduced operational range for the component of the plurality of robotic devices that excludes one or more of the operational values.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the operational range of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises an operational range provided by a manufacturer of the component of the plurality of robotic devices.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the operational range of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises an operational life of the component of the plurality of robotic devices.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining situations involving unexpected operation of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises determining situations involving failure of the component of the plurality of robotic devices.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein determining the situations involving failure of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises determining tasks attempted by respective robotic devices when failure of the component of the plurality of robotic devices occurred.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein determining the updated operational range comprises determining an updated operational range that decreases the likelihood of future failures of the component of the plurality of robotic devices.

9. The method of claim 1 :
wherein the tasks performed by the plurality of robotic devices comprise lifting objects,
wherein the situations involving unexpected operation of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprise failed attempts to lift objects, and
wherein the operational range comprises a maximum weight that the component of the plurality of robotic devices is configured to lift.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises a component selected from the group consisting of: a sensor, an actuator, a motor, and a battery.

11. A system comprising:
a plurality of robotic devices configured to transmit, via a network, task logs comprising information indicative of tasks performed by the plurality of robotic devices, wherein the information indicative of the tasks performed by the plurality of robotic devices comprises indications of whether individual tasks were completed by respective robotic devices with an amount of error that satisfies a particular amount of tolerance; and
a computing component, comprising a processor and a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the computing component is capable of communicating with the plurality of robotic devices over the network, the computing component configured to perform functions comprising:
receiving task logs from the plurality of robotic devices,
determining, based on the task logs, situations involving unexpected operation of a component of the plurality of robotic devices, wherein the situations involving unexpected operation of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprise situations in which individual tasks were completed by respective robotic devices with an amount of error that does not satisfy the particular amount of tolerance, and wherein the component of the plurality of robotic devices has an operational range,
determining, based on the situations, an updated operational range for the component of the plurality of robotic devices, and
updating the operational range of the component of the plurality of robotic devices to be the updated operational range.

12. The system of claim 11 :
wherein determining the situations comprises determining operational values of the component of the plurality of robotic devices when the situations occurred, and
wherein determining the updated operational range for the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises determining a reduced operational range for the component of the plurality of robotic devices that excludes one or more of the operational values.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the operational range of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises an operational life of the component of the plurality of robotic devices.

14. The system of claim 11 , wherein determining situations involving unexpected operation of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises determining situations involving failure of the component of the plurality of robotic devices.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein determining the situations involving failure of the component of the plurality of robotic devices comprises determining tasks attempted by respective robotic devices when failure of the component of the plurality of robotic devices occurred.

16. A method comprising:
receiving task logs for a plurality of robotic devices, wherein the task logs comprise information indicative of tasks performed by the plurality of robotic devices;
determining an operational range of a component of the plurality of robotic devices;
determining, using a computing system and based on the task logs, that the component of the plurality of robotic devices can operate outside of the operational range; and
responsive to determining that the component of the plurality of robotic devices can operate outside of the operational range, increasing the operational range.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the information indicative of the tasks performed by the plurality of robotic devices comprises indications of whether individual tasks were completed by respective robotic devices with an amount of error that satisfies a particular amount of tolerance, and wherein determining that the component of the plurality of robotic devices can operate outside of the operational range comprises determining that a number of the plurality of robotic devices have completed tasks involving performance of the component of the pl

Assignees

• X Dev Llc

Inventors

• Kuffner Jr James J
• Hickman Ryan

Classifications

• G08B21/18

  Status alarms (G08B21/02 takes precedence) · CPC title

• Y10S901/49

  Protective device · CPC title

• B25J9/1674

  characterised by safety, monitoring, diagnostic · CPC title

• G06Q10/20 Primary

  Administration of product repair or maintenance · CPC title

• B25J9/0084

  comprising a plurality of manipulators · CPC title