CN114680734B

CN114680734B - Cleaning robot and cleaning method thereof

Info

Publication number: CN114680734B
Application number: CN202011588597.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 王旭宁; 苗忠良
Original assignee: Sharkninja China Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Sharkninja China Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-12-28
Filing date: 2020-12-28
Publication date: 2023-04-07
Anticipated expiration: 2040-12-28
Also published as: CN114680734A

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a cleaning method of a cleaning robot including a camera, the cleaning method including: planning main traveling paths covering an area to be cleaned, wherein the distance between every two adjacent main traveling paths is larger than the cleaning width of the cleaning robot; the cleaning robot travels along the main traveling path, and in the traveling process, a target to be cleaned within a traveling radiation width range in front of the main traveling path is identified through an image shot by a camera; moving to the target to be cleaned to clean the target to be cleaned; after cleaning the target to be cleaned, continuing to travel along the main travel path; wherein the travelling radiation width is larger than the cleaning width of the cleaning robot and is smaller than/equal to the distance between the adjacent main travelling paths. The cleaning robot adopting the cleaning method can realize quick cleaning of the area to be cleaned.

Description

Cleaning robot and cleaning method thereof

Technical Field

The disclosure relates to the technical field of robot control, in particular to a cleaning robot and a cleaning method thereof.

Background

A cleaning robot (e.g., a sweeper, a mopping machine, a sweeping and mopping all-in-one machine, etc.) is a smart device that can autonomously clean a home environment according to a user's instructions.

In the process of cleaning the home environment, as shown in fig. 1, the cleaning robot firstly performs global path planning on the area to be cleaned, the distance between adjacent cleaning paths is equal to the cleaning width of the cleaning robot (for example, the width of the cleaning robot), and then performs full coverage cleaning on the area to be cleaned along the planned path.

Because when the household environment is not dirty, the partial area is generally clean, and the cleaning is not needed, the cleaning robot plans the cleaning path covering the household environment in a manner that the distance between the adjacent cleaning paths is equal to the cleaning width of the cleaning robot, and the planned cleaning paths are too many because the distance between the adjacent cleaning paths is equal to the cleaning width of the cleaning robot, so that the working time and the energy consumption of the cleaning robot are increased, and the cleaning efficiency is low.

Disclosure of Invention

The disclosure provides a cleaning robot and a cleaning method thereof, which can enable the cleaning robot to rapidly clean an area to be cleaned, and improve the cleaning efficiency of the cleaning robot.

In a first aspect, the present disclosure provides a cleaning method of a cleaning robot including a camera, the cleaning method including:

planning main traveling paths covering an area to be cleaned, wherein the distance between every two adjacent main traveling paths is larger than the cleaning width of the cleaning robot;

the cleaning device travels along the main travel path, and in the travel process, the target to be cleaned within the travel radiation width range in front of the main travel path is identified through the image shot by the camera;

moving to the target to be cleaned to clean the target to be cleaned;

after the target to be cleaned is cleaned, continuing to travel along the main travel path;

wherein the traveling radiation width is larger than the cleaning width of the cleaning robot itself and is larger than/equal to the distance between the adjacent main traveling paths.

Optionally, the moving to the target to be cleaned to clean the target to be cleaned includes:

constructing a directed graph by taking the identified cleaning targets as nodes, wherein the distance between any two targets to be cleaned in the same level in the directed graph in the main travel path direction is less than or equal to a preset layering width;

and traversing and cleaning the target to be cleaned in the directed graph by adopting an extent traversal strategy.

Optionally, the preset layered width is a cleaning width of the cleaning robot itself.

Optionally, the foregoing traversal cleaning of the target to be cleaned in the directed graph by using the breadth traversal strategy includes:

traversing all the nodes in a mode that a target to be cleaned closest to the cleaning robot is taken as an initial node and the first direction and the second direction alternately reciprocate;

wherein the first direction points to one side of the main travel path and the second direction points to the other side of the main travel path.

Optionally, the constructing a directed graph with the identified cleaning targets as nodes includes:

in the process of traveling, constructing a directed graph by taking all the targets to be cleaned which enter a preset traversal distance as nodes;

wherein the preset traversal distance refers to a distance in the main travel path direction adjacent to the cleaning robot.

Optionally, the preset traversal distance is determined by the following formula:

wherein D is _sprint For the aforementioned predetermined traversal distance, w _x Theta is a width view angle of the camera of the cleaning robot on a horizontal plane, which is the traveling radiation width.

Optionally, the aforementioned target to be cleaned includes:

a single dirty region; and/or the presence of a gas in the atmosphere,

the cleaning device comprises a set of a plurality of dirty areas, wherein the diameter of the minimum circumcircle of the dirty areas is smaller than or equal to a preset cleaning width value.

Optionally, the preset cleaning width value is a cleaning width of the cleaning robot.

Optionally, the aforementioned travelling radiation width is 2-4 times the aforementioned cleaning width.

In a second aspect, the present disclosure provides a cleaning robot comprising a processor, a memory, and execution instructions stored on the memory, the execution instructions being configured to, when executed by the processor, cause the cleaning robot to perform the cleaning method according to any one of the first aspect.

Based on the foregoing description, those skilled in the art can understand that main traveling paths covering an area to be cleaned are planned, wherein a distance between adjacent main traveling paths is larger than a cleaning width of the aforementioned cleaning robot itself. Compared with the cleaning path which covers the area to be cleaned and is planned in a mode that the distance between the adjacent cleaning paths is equal to the cleaning width of the cleaning robot in the prior art, the cleaning path is less in planned main traveling path because the distance between the adjacent main traveling paths is larger than the cleaning width of the cleaning robot, the working time and the energy consumption of the cleaning robot are reduced, and the cleaning efficiency is improved. And the cleaning robot travels along the main travel path, identifies the target to be cleaned within the travel radiation width range in front of the main travel path through the image shot by the camera in the travel process, and moves to the target to be cleaned to clean the target to be cleaned, wherein the travel radiation width is greater than or equal to the distance between the adjacent main travel paths, so that the cleaning robot can identify all the targets to be cleaned between the adjacent main travel paths and perform fixed-point cleaning, the cleaning robot can clean the target to be cleaned in the whole area to be cleaned, the whole area to be cleaned can be covered and cleaned, and the cleaning effect is good. In other words, the cleaning robot of the present disclosure can reduce the main travel path covering the region to be cleaned, and at the same time, can perform non-missing covering cleaning on the target to be cleaned in the region to be cleaned, and on the basis of ensuring that the cleaning effect of the region to be cleaned is good, the cleaning robot realizes quick cleaning and provides cleaning efficiency.

Furthermore, a directed graph is constructed by taking the identified cleaning target as a node, and then an extent traversal strategy is adopted to traverse and clean the target to be cleaned in the directed graph, so that the cleaning robot cannot retreat in the process of traversing and cleaning all the targets to be cleaned, and the cleaning efficiency of the cleaning robot is improved.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical aspects of the present disclosure, the technical aspects of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a path planning of a cleaning robot for rapidly cleaning an area to be cleaned in the prior art;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating the main steps of a cleaning method of the cleaning robot according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a path plan for a cleaning robot to rapidly clean a region to be cleaned according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of a scene during travel of the cleaning robot in the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating the steps of cleaning identified objects to be cleaned according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a directed graph constructed in the present disclosure;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural view of a cleaning robot in the present disclosure.

List of reference numerals:

10. a cleaning robot; 20. a camera; 30. a main travel path.

Detailed Description

To make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present disclosure more apparent, the technical solutions of the present disclosure will be clearly and completely described below with reference to specific embodiments and corresponding drawings. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the embodiments described in this detailed description are only a few embodiments of the disclosure, and not all embodiments of the disclosure. All other embodiments, which can be obtained by a person skilled in the art without inventive step based on the embodiments described in the detailed description of the present section, do not depart from the technical principles of the present disclosure, and therefore should fall within the scope of the present disclosure.

In the description of the present disclosure, each functional module may be a physical module composed of a plurality of structures, members, or electronic components, or may be a virtual module composed of a plurality of programs; each functional module may be a module that exists independently of each other, or may be a module that is functionally divided from an overall module. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the technical solutions described in the present disclosure can be implemented without any change in the configuration, implementation, and positional relationship of the functional modules, which does not depart from the technical principles of the present disclosure, and therefore, the functional modules should fall within the protection scope of the present disclosure.

In addition, it should be noted that, in the description of the present disclosure, unless explicitly stated or limited otherwise, the terms "connected" and "connected" should be understood broadly, and may be, for example, a wired connection, a wireless connection, and a communication connection (including both wired connection and wireless connection). The specific meaning of the above terms in the present disclosure can be understood as specific cases to one skilled in the art.

As shown in fig. 2, the cleaning method of the cleaning robot of the present disclosure includes:

step S110, a main travel path covering the area to be cleaned is planned.

Specifically, the cleaning robot is enabled to acquire a map of an area to be cleaned, and then the cleaning robot is enabled to plan a main traveling path covering the area to be cleaned according to the map, so that the cleaning robot can rapidly clean the whole area to be cleaned when traveling along the main traveling path.

Alternatively, the person skilled in the art may plan the main travel path covering the area to be cleaned by means of other devices (e.g. a mobile phone, a tablet computer, etc.) as desired. For example, the user manually draws a main travel path of the area to be cleaned on a map of the area to be cleaned displayed on the mobile phone, and then the mobile phone sends the planned path to the cleaning robot.

As shown in fig. 3 and 4, the main travel path 30 refers to a line, and during the travel of the cleaning robot 10 along the main travel path 30, the projection of the center point of the cleaning robot 10 on the horizontal plane coincides with the current main travel path 30. In the present disclosure, the main travel path 30 is used to guide the travel of the cleaning robot 10.

On the premise that the cleaning robot 10 can be guided to travel, a person skilled in the art may set the main travel path 30 to deviate from the central point of the cleaning robot 10 in the process of guiding the cleaning robot 10 to travel, as needed; alternatively, the main travel path 30 is provided in the form of having a width.

As shown in fig. 3 and 4, in the present disclosure, the interval L between the adjacent main traveling paths 30 is greater than the cleaning width w of the cleaning robot 10 itself. Preferably, the spacing L is 2-4 times the cleaning width w. Further preferably, the spacing L is 3 times the cleaning width w. Further, the spacing L may also be set to any other multiple of the cleaning width w, such as 3.5 times, 5 times, 5.6 times, etc., as desired by one skilled in the art.

Here, the cleaning width w is a range that the cleaning robot 10 can clean in the left and right directions thereof. If the cleaning robot 10 is a sweeping robot, the cleaning width w is the outermost edge of the range that the left and right brushes or cleaning rollers of the sweeping robot can cover. If the cleaning robot 10 is a floor mopping robot, the cleaning width w is the width of the mop on the floor mopping robot.

In the related art (as shown in fig. 1), the interval L between the adjacent main traveling paths 30 is the cleaning width w of the cleaning robot 10 itself. Therefore, when the path of the same area to be cleaned is planned, the number/length of the main travel paths 30 of the present disclosure is less than the number/length of the main travel paths 30 in the prior art, so that the total stroke of the cleaning robot 10 during quick cleaning is reduced, thereby improving the cleaning efficiency of the cleaning robot 10.

And step S120, traveling along the main traveling path, and identifying the target to be cleaned within the range of the traveling radiation width in front of the main traveling path through the image shot by the camera in the traveling process.

As shown in fig. 3 and 4, the camera 20 is provided on the cleaning robot 10 and can acquire an image in front of the cleaning robot 10.

Specifically, the cleaning robot 10 is caused to acquire an image in front in real time by the camera 20 while traveling along the main travel path 30, then extract an area within a radiation width range from the acquired image, and then recognize the extracted area to recognize a dirty area, and the recognized dirty area is used as a target to be cleaned.

In the present disclosure, the traveling radiation width is greater than the cleaning width of the cleaning robot 10 itself, and is greater than/equal to the interval between the adjacent main traveling paths 30.

Preferably, the width of the travelling radiation w _x = L =3w. Wherein w _x To travel the width of the radiation, w is the cleaning width of the cleaning robot 10 itself.

In the present disclosure, regarding the identified dirty region as an object to be cleaned, the method includes: judging whether the diameters of the smallest circumscribed circles of the current dirty area and the plurality of dirty areas adjacent to the current dirty area are smaller than or equal to a preset cleaning width value or not; if so, taking the plurality of dirty areas as one object to be cleaned (such as the object to be cleaned 7 shown in FIG. 4); if not, the current dirty region is treated as a separate object to be cleaned (objects to be cleaned 1-6 as shown in FIG. 4). In other words, the object to be cleaned includes a single dirty area and/or a set of multiple dirty areas in which the diameter of the smallest circumscribed circle of the multiple dirty areas is less than/equal to the preset cleaning width value. Preferably, the preset cleaning width value is equal to the cleaning width w of the cleaning robot 10 itself.

And step S130, moving to the target to be cleaned to clean the target to be cleaned.

As an alternative, step S130 includes: the cleaning robot 10 sequentially cleans the cleaning target on the main travel path 30 in a near-to-far manner. Taking the cleaning targets 1 to 6 in fig. 4 as an example, the cleaning robot 10 is caused to clean the cleaning target 1, the cleaning target 2, the cleaning target 3, the cleaning target 6, and the cleaning targets 4 and 5 in this order.

As an alternative, as shown in fig. 6, step S130 includes:

step S131, a directed graph is constructed by taking the identified cleaning target as a node.

And the distance between any two targets to be cleaned at the same level in the directed graph in the main traveling path direction is less than or equal to the preset layering width.

As shown in fig. 4 and 6, with one cleaning target (the cleaning target 1 shown in fig. 4 and 6) closest to the cleaning robot 10 as a start node and d as a preset hierarchical width, when the distance between the next cleaning target and the farthest node on the upper layer in the direction of the main travel path is less than or equal to d, the cleaning target and the node on the upper layer are nodes on the same layer, otherwise, the cleaning target is taken as a lower node of the nearest upper node, and thus a directed graph is constructed. For example, referring to fig. 6, d1, d2, d3, d4, d5 are all less than or equal to d, the target 1 to be cleaned in the constructed directed graph is a root node, the

targets

2, 3 to be cleaned are subordinate nodes of the target 1 to be cleaned, the target 4 to be cleaned is a subordinate node of the target 3 to be cleaned, the

nodes

5, 6 to be cleaned are subordinate nodes of the target 2 to be cleaned, the target 7 to be cleaned is a subordinate node of the target 5 to be cleaned, and the

targets

8, 9 to be cleaned are subordinate nodes of the target 7 to be cleaned. That is, the directed graph is divided into a first hierarchy d1, a second hierarchy d2, a third hierarchy d3, a fourth hierarchy d4, and a fifth hierarchy d5. Among them, the object 1 to be cleaned exists in the first level d1, the

objects

2 and 3 to be cleaned exist in the second level d2, the

objects

4, 5 and 6 to be cleaned exist in the third level d3, the object 7 to be cleaned exists in the fourth level d4, and the

objects

8 and 9 to be cleaned exist in the fifth level d5.

In the present disclosure, the preset layered width d is smaller than or equal to the cleaning width w of the cleaning robot 10 itself, so that the cleaning robot 10 can finish cleaning the nodes of each layer without moving too much in the main travel path direction during the layered traversal according to the breadth traversal strategy. Preferably, d = w, in order to improve the cleaning efficiency of the cleaning robot 10.

Returning to continue with fig. 4, during the travel of the cleaning robot 10 along the main travel path 30, the camera 20 captures the current travel radiation width w _x Out-of-range targets to be cleaned, in order to avoid the existence of the current traveling radiation width w in the directed graph constructed by the cleaning robot 10 _x The target to be cleaned out of the range, the target to be cleaned constructing the directed graph is preferably the target to enter the preset traversal distance D _sprint The target to be cleaned. Preset traversal distance D _sprint Determined by the following equation:

as shown in FIG. 4, the predetermined traversal distance D _sprint Refers to a distance in the direction of the main traveling path 30 adjacent to the cleaning robot 10; θ is a width view angle of the camera 20 of the cleaning robot 10 in a horizontal plane.

And S132, traversing and cleaning the target to be cleaned in the directed graph by adopting a breadth traversing strategy.

In the disclosure, an extent traversal strategy is adopted to perform traversal cleaning on the target to be cleaned in the directed graph, that is, the target to be cleaned in the directed graph is traversed and cleaned layer by layer from near to far.

As shown in fig. 6, one object to be cleaned, which is closest to the cleaning robot 10, is a start node, and all nodes are traversed in such a manner that the first direction and the second direction alternately reciprocate. Referring to fig. 4 and 6, the first direction is a direction from bottom to top, and the second direction is a direction from top to bottom. Alternatively, the first direction is from top to bottom, and the second direction is from bottom to top.

For example, referring to fig. 6, the cleaning sequence of the cleaning robot to the objects to be cleaned is shown by arrows in the figure, the cleaning robot first cleans the objects to be cleaned 1, then cleans the next layer in the direction from bottom to top, sequentially cleans the objects to be cleaned 2, 3, and then cleans the next layer in the direction from top to bottom, sequentially cleans the objects to be cleaned 4, 5, 6.

In step S140, after the cleaning target is cleaned, the cleaning target continues to travel along the main travel path.

Based on the foregoing description, those skilled in the art can understand that main traveling paths covering an area to be cleaned are planned, wherein a distance between adjacent main traveling paths is larger than a cleaning width of the aforementioned cleaning robot itself. Compared with the cleaning path which covers the area to be cleaned and is planned in a mode that the distance between the adjacent cleaning paths is equal to the cleaning width of the cleaning robot in the prior art, the cleaning path is less in planned main traveling path because the distance between the adjacent main traveling paths is larger than the cleaning width of the cleaning robot, the working time and the energy consumption of the cleaning robot are reduced, and the cleaning efficiency is improved. And the cleaning robot travels along the main travel path, identifies the target to be cleaned within the range of travel radiation width in front of the main travel path through the image shot by the camera in the travel process, moves to the target to be cleaned to clean the target to be cleaned, wherein the travel radiation width is greater than or equal to the distance between the adjacent main travel paths, so that the cleaning robot can identify all the targets to be cleaned between the adjacent main travel paths and perform fixed-point cleaning, the cleaning robot can clean the target to be cleaned in the whole cleaning area, the whole cleaning area can be covered and cleaned, and the cleaning effect is good. In other words, the cleaning robot of the present disclosure can reduce the main travel path covering the region to be cleaned, and at the same time, can perform non-missing covering cleaning on the target to be cleaned in the region to be cleaned, and on the basis of ensuring that the cleaning effect of the region to be cleaned is good, the cleaning robot realizes quick cleaning and provides cleaning efficiency.

As shown in fig. 7, the present disclosure also provides a cleaning robot. The cleaning robot comprises a processor, optionally a memory and a bus on a hardware level, and furthermore allows the inclusion of hardware required for other services.

The memory is used for storing an execution instruction, and the execution instruction is a computer program capable of being executed. Further, the memory may include both memory and non-volatile memory (non-volatile memory) and provide execution instructions and data to the processor. Illustratively, the Memory may be a Random-Access Memory (RAM), and the non-volatile Memory may be at least 1 disk Memory.

Wherein the bus is used to interconnect the processor, the memory, and the network interface. The bus may be an ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) bus, a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus, an EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture) bus, or the like. The bus may be divided into an address bus, a data bus, a control bus, etc. For ease of illustration, only one double-headed arrow is shown in FIG. 7, but this does not represent only one bus or one type of bus.

In a possible implementation manner of the cleaning robot, the processor may first read the corresponding execution instruction from the nonvolatile memory to the memory and then operate the corresponding execution instruction, or may first obtain the corresponding execution instruction from another device and then operate the corresponding execution instruction. The processor can implement the cleaning method of the present disclosure when executing the execution instructions stored in the memory.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the above cleaning method may be applied to a processor, or may be implemented by means of a processor. Illustratively, the processor is an integrated circuit chip having the capability to process signals. During the process of executing the cleaning method by the processor, the steps of the cleaning method can be completed by the integrated logic circuit in the form of hardware or the instructions in the form of software in the processor. Further, the Processor may be a general-purpose Processor, such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Network Processor (NP), a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or other Programmable logic device, discrete Gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, a microprocessor, or any other conventional Processor.

It will also be understood by those skilled in the art that the steps of the cleaning method described above in the present disclosure may be performed by a hardware decoding processor, or may be performed by a combination of hardware and software modules in the decoding processor. The software module may be located in ram, flash memory, rom, prom, eprom, registers, and other storage media that are well known in the art. The storage medium is located in the memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory and then completes the execution of the steps in the cleaning method in combination with hardware of the processor.

So far, the description of the technical solution of the present disclosure has been completed with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, it will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art that the scope of the present disclosure is not limited to these specific embodiments. A person skilled in the art may split and combine the technical solutions in the above embodiments, and may make equivalent changes or substitutions on the related technical features without departing from the technical principle of the present disclosure, and any changes, equivalents, improvements and the like made within the technical idea and/or technical principle of the present disclosure will fall within the protection scope of the present disclosure.

Claims

1. A cleaning method of a cleaning robot including a camera, characterized by comprising:

the cleaning robot travels along the main traveling path, and in the traveling process, a target to be cleaned within a traveling radiation width range in front of the main traveling path is identified through an image shot by the camera;

moving to the target to be cleaned to clean the target to be cleaned;

after cleaning the target to be cleaned, continuing to travel along the main travel path;

wherein the traveling radiation width is greater than a cleaning width of the cleaning robot itself and greater than/equal to a spacing between the adjacent main traveling paths.

2. The cleaning method according to claim 1, wherein the moving to the target to be cleaned cleans the target to be cleaned, including:

constructing a directed graph by taking the identified cleaning targets as nodes, wherein the distance between any two targets to be cleaned in the same level in the directed graph in the main traveling path direction is less than or equal to a preset layering width;

3. The cleaning method according to claim 2, wherein the preset layered width is a cleaning width of the cleaning robot itself.

4. The cleaning method according to claim 2, wherein the traversing and cleaning the target to be cleaned in the directed graph by adopting the breadth traversing strategy comprises:

5. The cleaning method according to claim 2, wherein the constructing a directed graph with the identified cleaning targets as nodes comprises:

in the process of traveling, constructing a directed graph by taking all the targets to be cleaned within a preset traversal distance as nodes;

6. The cleaning method of claim 5, wherein the preset traversal distance is determined by the formula:

wherein D is _sprint For the preset traversal distance, w _x Theta is a width view angle of a camera of the cleaning robot on a horizontal plane for the traveling radiation width.

7. The cleaning method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the object to be cleaned includes:

a single dirty region; and/or the presence of a gas in the gas,

a set of multiple dirty regions, the diameter of the smallest circumscribed circle of the multiple dirty regions being less than/equal to a preset cleaning width value.

8. The cleaning method according to claim 7, wherein the preset cleaning width value is a cleaning width of the cleaning robot itself.

9. The cleaning method according to any one of claims 1-6, wherein the traveling radiation width is 2-4 times the cleaning width.

10. A cleaning robot comprising a processor, a memory, and execution instructions stored on the memory, the execution instructions being arranged, when executed by the processor, to enable the cleaning robot to perform the cleaning method of any one of claims 1 to 9.