Cleaning path guidance method combined with dirt detection mechanism

• US 8,871,030 B2
• Filed: 07/18/2011
• Issued: 10/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: iRobot Corporation
• Original Assignee: MSI Computer Corp. (Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Teng, You-Wei, Chen, Shui-Shih
• Primary Examiner(s): Chaudhry, Saeed T
• Application Number:
  US13/184,700
• Publication Number:
  US 20120247510A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,198 Days
• Field of Search: 134/18, 134/21, 134/42, 153/19, 153/401
• US Class Current: 134/18
• CPC Class Codes: A47L 2201/04 Automatic control of the travelling movement; Automatic obstacle detection
• 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: G05D 1/0219 ensuring the processing of the whole working surface
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0274 using mapping information stored in a memory device navigation using map-matching G01C21/30

Abstract

A cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism is performed in an automatic cleaning device to generate a cleaning path, so as to guide the automatic cleaning device to clean an area to be cleaned, in which plural grids are defined in the area. The method includes: moving the automatic cleaning device in the area to clear dirt away, and continuously detecting a flow of the dirt cleared away to obtain a dirt level of a current gird; if the dirt level of the current gird exceeds a threshold, marking the grid as a dirty grid; performing an algorithm and finding a shortest path passing through all dirty grids as a cleaning path according to the marked dirty grids; and moving the automatic cleaning device to pass through each dirty grid according to the clean path, so as to clean each dirty gird sequentially.

Claims

1. A cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism, performed in an automatic cleaning device to generate a cleaning path for the automatic cleaning device to clean an area to be cleaned according to the clean path, wherein a plurality of grids is defined in the area to be cleaned, and the method comprises:

moving the automatic cleaning device in the area to be cleaned, so as to clear dirt away with the automatic cleaning device;

continuously performing a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithm to determine a current position of the automatic cleaning device, during said moving;

detecting a flow of the dirt cleared away to obtain a dirt level of a current grid, during said moving;

marking the grid as a dirty grid, when the dirt level of the current grid exceeds a threshold;

finding a shortest path passing through all marked dirty grids as a cleaning path according to the marked dirty grids; and

said moving including moving the automatic cleaning device to pass through each marked dirty grid according to the clean path, so as to clean each marked dirty grid sequentially.

2. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 1, wherein the detecting the flow of the dirt cleared away comprises:

obtaining a noise value when clearing the dirt with a microphone as the dirt level of the grid.

3. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 1, wherein the detecting the flow of the dirt cleared away comprises detecting a light transmittance of an air flow generated when clearing the dirt as the dirt level.

4. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 1, further comprising determining at least one dirty block through the dirty grids, wherein the dirty block comprises a plurality of grids;

adding a step of implementing a cleaning path mode for the dirty block in the cleaning path, so as to completely clean the grids belonging to the dirty block.

5. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 4, wherein the cleaning path is selected from a bounce cleaning path mode, a wall follow cleaning path mode, a Snake cleaning path mode, and a combination thereof.

6. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 4, wherein a method for generating a dirty block is a clustering algorithm.

7. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 4, wherein a plurality of dirty blocks is determined according to the dirty grids, a weight value is assigned to each dirty block according to a size thereof and the dirt level, an order of the dirty blocks is determined according to the weight values, and the cleaning path is generated according to the order of the dirty blocks.

8. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 4, further comprising driving the automatic cleaning device at a specific time point to perform cleaning for at least one corresponding dirty block.

9. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 1, further comprising moving the automatic cleaning device to a charging station for charging after each dirty grid in the cleaning path is cleaned.

10. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 9, wherein when the automatic cleaning device is charged, the method further comprises:

waiting for an input start command, and after the start command is input, moving the automatic cleaning device to pass through each dirty grid according to the clean path to clean each dirty grid sequentially.

11. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 9, wherein when the automatic cleaning device is charged, the method further comprises:

checking a schedule to determine whether a current time reaches a schedule time; and

if the current time reaches the schedule time, moving the automatic cleaning device to pass through each dirty grid according to the clean path, so as to clean each dirty grid sequentially.

12. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 9, wherein every time after one of the grids is cleaned, the method further comprises:

determining whether the automatic cleaning device has sufficient power for returning to the charging station after a next grid is cleaned; and

if it does, the automatic cleaning device continuously cleaning the next dirty grid according to a current cleaning path; and

if not, moving the automatic cleaning device to the charging station for charging.

13. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 1, wherein before the cleaning path is generated, the method further comprises:

determining a sustainable operation time of the automatic cleaning device, and dividing the sustainable operation time into a cleaning stage and a returning stage;

determining a number of grids that the automatic cleaning device passes through during the cleaning stage;

generating a plurality of cleaning paths during the cleaning stage according to the current position of the automatic cleaning device and the number of grids; and

finding a cleaning path with an optimal cleaning effect to move the automatic cleaning device to perform cleaning.

14. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 13, wherein the finding the cleaning path with the optimal cleaning effect comprises:

every time the cleaning path passes through a dirty grid, adding a plus score positively correlated with the dirt level; and

every time the cleaning path repeatedly passes through a grid, subtracting a minus score; and

adding the plus scores and the minus scores to find a score of each cleaning path, so as to find a cleaning path having a highest score, that is, the cleaning path with the optimal cleaning effect.

15. The cleaning path guidance method combined with a dirt detection mechanism according to claim 13, wherein the finding a path during the returning stage comprises:

finding a shortest path between an end point and a starting point of the cleaning path with the optimal cleaning effect as the path during the returning stage.