Domestic Surface Treatment Appliance Provided with Tracking Means and Tracking Module for Use with Such Appliance

• US 20070214596A1
• Filed: 05/09/2005
• Published: 09/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Bax, Pieter
• Application Number:
  US11/579,776
• Publication Number:
  US 20070214596A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 15/339
• CPC Class Codes: A47L 9/2805 Parameters or conditions being sensed
• CPC Class Codes: A47L 9/2857 User input or output elements for control, e.g. buttons, switches or displays
• CPC Class Codes: A47L 9/2894 Details related to signal transmission in suction cleaners
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0219 ensuring the processing of the whole working surface

Abstract

The invention relates to a domestic surface treatment appliance (1), such as a vacuum cleaner, iron or lawn mower, provided with a treatment head (2) for treating a surface by wiping along or passing over said surface. The appliance (1) furthermore comprises tracking means (12) for recording wiping movements of the treatment head (2), and a user interface (15) for presenting the recorded wiping movements as strokes (S) on a display (16), enabling a user to readily spot missed surface parts. The appliance (1) may further comprise quality detection means (14), for measuring a parameter representative of the achieved quality. This quality parameter can be presented to a user by the color of the strokes (S). The invention furthermore relates to a module (10), comprising tracking means (12), a user interface (15) and possible quality detection means (14), for use with a domestic surface treatment appliance (1).

Claims

1. Domestic surface treatment appliance comprising a treatment head arranged to be passed over or wiped along a surface to be treated, characterized in that the appliance comprises tracking means for recording wiping movements of the treatment head, and a user interface for presenting the recorded wiping movements to a user and/or a central processing unit.

2. Appliance according to claim 1, characterized in that the user interface comprises a display arranged to display at least a relevant portion of the surface to be treated and each recorded wiping movement as a stroke or brush on said surface portion.

3. Appliance according to claim 1, characterized in that the tracking means comprise at least one position, velocity or acceleration sensor.

4. Appliance according to claim 1, characterized in that the appliance further comprises quality detection means, arranged to record one or more parameters that are representative of a quality of the surface treatment.

5. Appliance according to claim 4, characterized in that the quality detection means are arranged to record the quality of the surface treatment during each wiping movement of the treatment head.

6. Appliance according to claim 2, characterized in that the user interface is arranged to present, for each stroke displayed by the interface, an average quality recorded for that stroke.

7. Appliance according to claim 6, characterized in that the recorded quality is presented to a user by a color of the relevant surface portion or stroke displayed on the user interface.

8. Appliance according to claim 4, characterized in that the user interface is arranged to instantaneously present recorded quality data, measured during each wiping movement.

9. Appliance according to claim 1, characterized in that the user interface is arranged to indicate a current position of the treatment head with regard to the surface being treated.

10. Appliance according to claim 4, characterized in that the appliance is a vacuum cleaner, the treatment head is a suction nozzle and the quality detection means comprise a particle sensor, which is mounted in a flowpath of the air sucked up during use by the suction nozzle, said particle sensor being arranged for measuring a quantity of dust or other particles contained in said sucked up air, per unit of time unit and/or per unit of volume.

11. Module for use with a domestic surface treatment appliance provided with a treatment head for wiping along the surface to be treated, characterized in that the module comprises tracking means for recording wiping movements of the treatment head and a user interface for presenting the recorded wiping movements to a user.

12. Module according to claim 11, characterized in that the user interface Comprises a display, arranged to display at least a relevant part of the surface to be treated as well as each recorded wiping movement as a stroke or brush on said surface.

13. Module according to claim 11, characterized in that the module further comprises quality detection means for detecting one or more parameters representative of the quality of the treatment, preferably for each wiping movement of the treatment head.