Dust detection method and apparatus for cleaning robot

• US 7,920,941 B2
• Filed: 01/06/2005
• Issued: 04/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Park, Dong-ryeol, Park, Jun-ho
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran; Khoi
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jen; Ian
• Application Number:
  US11/029,631
• Publication Number:
  US 20050192707A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,280 Days
• Field of Search: 700/245, 700/259, 318/568.12, 318/580, 345/589
• US Class Current: 700/259
• CPC Class Codes: A47L 2201/06 Control of the cleaning action for autonomous devices; Automatic detection of the surface condition before, during or after cleaning
• CPC Class Codes: A47L 9/281 the amount or condition of incoming dirt or dust
• CPC Class Codes: A47L 9/2857 User input or output elements for control, e.g. buttons, switches or displays
• CPC Class Codes: A47L 9/30 Arrangement of illuminating devices
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0246 using a video camera in combination with image processing means
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0272 comprising means for registering the travel distance, e.g. revolutions of wheels measuring distance traversed on the ground by vehicles, e.g. using odometers G01C22/00
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0274 using mapping information stored in a memory device navigation using map-matching G01C21/30

Abstract

A dust detection method and apparatus of a cleaning robot. The dust detection method involves acquiring a floor image as a current floor image of a predetermined place at a current location of the cleaning robot in the predetermined place; obtaining a difference image between the current floor image and a background image selected from a feature map consisting of a plurality of floor images of the predetermined place; and detecting a dusty area based on the difference image and adjusting a cleaning power of the cleaning robot.

Claims

1. A dust detection apparatus of a cleaning robot, comprising:

an image acquisition unit which acquires a floor image as a current floor image at a current location of the cleaning robot in the predetermined place; and

a control unit which calculates a difference image between the current floor image and a background image selected from among the plurality of floor images of a feature map, detects a dusty area based on the calculated difference image, and adjusts the cleaning power of the cleaning robot based on the detected dusty area,

wherein, when the plurality of floor images of the feature map have no patterns, the control unit selects one of the plurality of floor images as the background image, and when the plurality of floor images of the feature map have patterns, the control unit performs template matching on the current floor image and each of the plurality of floor images of the feature map, measures a similarity between the current floor image and each of the floor images, comparing a maximum among similarities obtained as template matching results with a predetermined reference value, and selects one of the plurality of floor images of the feature map corresponding to the maximum similarity as the background image when the maximum similarity is larger than the predetermined reference value and sets the cleaning power of the cleaning robot to a maximum level when the maximum similarity is not larger than the predetermined reference value.

2. The dust detection apparatus of claim 1, wherein the feature map is generated by causing the cleaning robot to remove dust and dirt on the floor of the predetermined place, acquire floor images of the predetermined place, and store, as a map, the acquired floor images and the respective locations of the cleaning robot provided by a localization system.

3. The dust detection apparatus of claim 1, wherein, when the current floor image is identical to a previous floor image already stored in the feature map, the identity of the current floor image with the previous floor image is displayed on the feature map, otherwise, the current floor image is stored in the feature map separately from the previous floor image.

4. The dust detection apparatus of claim 1, wherein, when one of the plurality of floor images of the feature map is selected as the background image, the control unit calculates a distance that the cleaning robot moved based on the location of the background image in the feature map and compensates for an error in the calculated distance that the cleaning robot has moved.

5. The dust detection apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an illumination unit which is turned on when the image acquisition unit acquires the current floor image.

6. The dust detection apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a memory which stores the feature map.

7. A cleaning robot, comprising:

an image acquisition unit which acquires floor images in which the cleaning robot moves while performing a cleaning process;

an image processing unit which performs treatments on the acquired floor images; and

a control unit which calculates difference images between each of the acquired floor images and a plurality of floor images of a feature map, detects a dusty area based on pixels of the calculated difference images having a value greater than a predetermined value, and adjusts the cleaning power of the cleaning robot based on whether the pixel values are greater than the predetermined value,

wherein the control unit adjusts the cleaning power based on the size of the area that requires cleaning.

8. The cleaning robot of claim 7, wherein the image acquisition unit may be a camera with a wide angle or super-wide angle lens (e.g., a fisheye lens).

9. The cleaning robot of claim 8, wherein the treatments include distortion compensation and pre-treatment processes.

10. The cleaning robot of claim 7, further comprises an illumination unit which is turned on by the control unit when the image acquisition unit acquires floor images.

11. The cleaning robot of claim 7, further comprises a memory which stores the plurality of floor images of the predetermined place and the respective locations of the cleaning robot in the predetermined place as the feature map.

12. The cleaning robot of claim 7, further comprising an odometry unit which determines a distance that the cleaning robot has moved.

13. The cleaning robot of claim 12, wherein the odometry unit is an encoder.