Wall following robot
AssigneeiRobot Corporation
InventorsBrian Wolfe, Ping-Hong Lu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An example robot includes a body that is movable relative to a surface, a bumper mounted on the body to enable movement of the bumper relative to the body, a sensor to produce a signal in response to the movement of the bumper relative to the body caused by contact between the bumper and the surface, and a controller to control movement of the body to cause the body to track the surface based on a value. The bumper is movable between an uncompressed position relative to the body and a compressed position relative to the body. The signal varies linearly with the movement of the bumper relative to the body. The value is based on the signal and indicates that the bumper in a partially compressed position has a compression range between the uncompressed position and the compressed position.
Claims21
A mobile cleaning robot comprising:
- a drive system to move the robot across a floor surface and relative to a wall surface;
- a bumper movable between a fully uncompressed position and a fully compressed position;
- a pad holder on a bottom portion of the robot;
- the pad holder configured to receive a cleaning pad extending beyond right and left sides of the robot and facing the floor surface;
- and a controller configured to advance the robot, in a wall following behavior, along the wall surface while maintaining contact between a portion of the cleaning pad and the wall surface, while maintaining a position of the bumper within a range between the fully uncompressed position and the fully compressed position, and while maintaining a non-zero angle between the right side or the left side of the robot and the wall surface.
A method of controlling a mobile cleaning robot, comprising:
- advancing the robot, in a wall following behavior, along a wall surface;
- and
- maintaining contact between a portion of a cleaning pad of the robot and the wall surface while advancing the robot along the wall surface in the wall following behavior, while maintaining a position of a bumper of the robot within a range between a fully uncompressed position and a fully compressed position, and while maintaining a non-zero angle between the robot and the wall surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.