Mobile robot providing environmental mapping for household environmental control

A mobile robot, comprising:

• a processor connected to a memory and a wireless network circuit, for executing routines stored in the memory and commands generated by the routines and received via the wireless network circuit;
• driven wheels commandable by the processor to reach a multiplicity of accessible two dimensional locations within a household;
• and
• a localizing circuit;
• the processor executing a plurality of routines including:
• a navigation routine which commands the driven wheels to move the robot about the household,
• a surface mapping routine that accumulates observations from the localizing circuit to record a two dimensional array representing accessible two dimensional locations of the mobile robot;
• a mission time estimate routine that accumulates timed readings from the localizing circuit and determines at least one estimated completion time span for the mobile robot to substantially cover a surface area corresponding to a contiguous set of possible locations within the two dimensional array;
• and
• a mission pre-planning routine that compares a target completion time to the at least one estimated completion time span, and commands the driven wheels to begin covering the surface area sufficiently in advance of the target completion time for the at least one estimated completion time to pass, so that the surface area is substantially covered before the target completion time.