How Does A Robot Vacuum Find Its Way Around?

Sep 16
18:39

2014

Sol Ami Patria

Sol Ami Patria

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The most important element of the robot vacuum technology is navigation. Manufacturers work hard to design sensors and software to allow the units to move around in a smart way. Let us see how that happens.

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The way a robotic vacuum cleaner travels on its own without running into trouble is atonishing to many. There are many aspects to its ability to navigate. This article discusses some of the basic aspects of robot vacuum navigation.

Sensing a bump is not the only way a robot vacuum can understand that it has encountered an obstacle. If it had no other ways to see its environment,How Does A Robot Vacuum Find Its Way Around? Articles the robot would have to bounce off every inch of the wall before it vacuumed the entire room. To the contrary, most robot vacuums are smart enough to move across a wall and vacuum the bottom of the wall completely. They achieve this with the infrared sensors that tell them they are close to a big obstacle. These eyes do not always work perfectly and may fail when dealing with small objects. That is why you should leave small things on the ground when the robot vacuum is doing its job. It is likely that it will not be able to detect low-profile items and will get stuck.

Some vacuums have long-range sensors that allow it to gauge the dimensions of the wall and generate a virtual map for more efficient navigation. The brand that emphasizes this feature more than others is Neato. The robotic vacuum cleaners of this manufacturer scan the room prior to vacuuming. As for Roomba, the scanning capability is limited and they depend more on their stronger batteries and suction to get he job done. The recently aired Dyson robot vacuum is said to have the most advanced mapping technology with spherical eye that sees all parts of the room at the same time.

A key ability for a robotic cleaner is to avoid stairs. Needless to say that all vacuum producers put the greatest effort into developing precipice sensors because it is decisive for the continued functionality of the robot vacuum. As a result, most robotic vacuums are very good at stopping once they get close to a step.

In the end, either the battery dies or the room is finished and the robot has to return to the dock to reat and get ready for the next go. The unit will look for signals from the service dock once it decides time has come to go home. Because this is not as vital as avoiding stairs, low-end vacuums are often equipped with low-quality systems to get back to the base as a measure to cut the costs. Therefore, returning to the recharge station successfully is a key trait that distinguishes the best robot vacuum from cheap ones.

In general, the higher the quality of the robot vacuum, the more powerful its sensors are. If the unit is unable to detect what is going on its proximity, it will get stuck often and you will waste your time rescuing it. That is why you must be very careful when shopping for an automatic vacuum cleaner.

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