CN116276960A - Workstation searching method - Google Patents

Abstract

The application provides a workstation searching method, which is applied to a robot, and comprises the following steps: generating a moving path according to the skeleton information of the target area, wherein the moving path comprises a plurality of search points, and the search points are positioned at the tail end of each skeleton branch corresponding to the moving path; controlling the robot to reach each search point according to the moving path, and searching signals at each search point; based on the search results, the location of the workstation is determined. According to the method, the single room or the whole area can be quickly traversed according to whether the room information exists in the target area, the work station is searched, and the efficiency of searching the work station by the robot is improved.

Description

Workstation searching method

Technical Field

The application relates to the field of robots, in particular to a workstation searching method.

Background

With the improvement of the living standard of people, the mobile robot technology is widely applied to various industries, in particular to service robots, including dining robots of restaurants and sweeping robots of families.

The robot workstation is used for carrying out operations such as charging, water supplementing, dust collecting and the like for the robot. In the use process of the robot, the position of the workstation is quickly searched, so that the method has important significance. The current method for searching the workstation by the robot is generally based on a full map wall-following scheme, but the method needs a lot of time, and the robot is easy to be blocked by objects placed on the wall side and the wall foot, so that the robot cannot quickly search the workstation to perform corresponding charging, water supplementing or dust collecting operations.

Disclosure of Invention

An object of the embodiment of the present application is to provide a workstation searching method, by which the problem that a robot cannot quickly search a workstation can be solved. According to the method, the single room or the whole area can be quickly traversed according to whether the room information exists in the target area, the work station is searched, and the efficiency of searching the work station by the robot is improved.

The application provides a workstation searching method, which is applied to a robot, and comprises the following steps:

generating a moving path according to skeleton information of a target area, wherein the moving path comprises a plurality of search points, and the search points are positioned at the tail end of each skeleton branch corresponding to the moving path;

controlling the robot to reach each retrieval point according to the moving path, and searching signals at each retrieval point;

and determining the position of the workstation according to the search result.

In an embodiment, the generating a moving path according to the skeleton information of the target area includes:

processing the map of the target area;

judging whether a plurality of subareas exist in the target area according to a processing result, and if so, acquiring skeleton information in each subarea;

connecting the skeletons in each sub-region to generate the moving path.

In an embodiment, the processing the map of the target area includes:

and carrying out segmentation processing on the map of the target area to obtain information of each sub-area in the target area.

In an embodiment, the generating a moving path according to the skeleton information of the target further includes:

if a plurality of subareas exist, acquiring skeleton intersection points outside each subarea as communication points;

if a plurality of sub-areas do not exist, map skeleton information of the target area is obtained;

and generating the moving path according to the map skeleton information of the target area.

In an embodiment, the controlling the robot to reach each of the search points according to the moving path and perform a signal search at each of the search points includes:

and controlling the robot to move according to the moving path, reaching each retrieval point in different sub-areas through the communication point, and searching signals at each retrieval point.

In an embodiment, the controlling the robot to move according to the moving path and reach each of the search points in different sub-areas through the communication point includes:

determining a target communication point according to the distance between the current position of the robot and a plurality of communication points, wherein the target communication point is the communication point closest to the current position of the robot;

and controlling the robot to move to the target communication point and reach each retrieval point in different sub-areas through the target communication point.

In an embodiment, the controlling the robot to move according to the moving path and reach each of the search points in different sub-areas through the connection point, and performing a signal search at each of the search points includes:

controlling the robot to move to one of the subareas according to the moving path, and searching signals at all the retrieval points in one of the subareas;

and when no signal is searched in one of the subareas, controlling the robot to enter the other subarea through the communication point, and continuing to search for the signal at all the retrieval points in the other subarea until the signal is searched.

In an embodiment, if there are no multiple sub-areas, acquiring map skeleton information of the target area, and generating the moving path according to the map skeleton information of the target area, further includes:

judging whether the workstation exists in the target area or not;

if the map skeleton information exists, generating the moving path according to the map skeleton information of the target area, controlling the robot to move to each search point according to the moving path, and searching signals at each search point;

if the search anomaly prompt information does not exist, generating and displaying the search anomaly prompt information.

In an embodiment, the robot is equipped with a signal receiver, and the signal searching at each search point includes:

and controlling the robot to rotate at the retrieval point, and searching for a signal sent by the workstation through the signal receiver while rotating.

In an embodiment, the determining the location of the workstation according to the search result includes:

when a return signal of the workstation is detected, the robot is controlled to move to the workstation according to the position of the workstation indicated by the return signal.

In the scheme of the application, the problem that the robot cannot quickly search the workstation can be solved. According to the method, the single room or the whole area can be quickly traversed according to whether the room information exists in the target area, the work station is searched, and the efficiency of searching the work station by the robot is improved.

According to the scheme, the problem of how to quickly search the workstation by the robot after the workstation is moved can be solved. The workstation searching method can also be used for quickly searching the workstation.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, the following description will briefly explain the drawings that are required to be used in the embodiments of the present application.

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a robot according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 2 is a flowchart of a workstation searching method according to a first embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of skeleton information of a sub-region in a target region according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 4 is a schematic view of a moving path provided in the first embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 5 is a schematic view of a movement path traversed by a single sub-region provided in a first embodiment of the present application;

fig. 6 is a schematic map view of a target area according to a second embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of map skeleton information of a target area according to a second embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a schematic view of a moving path according to a second embodiment of the present application;

fig. 9 is a flowchart of a workstation searching method according to a second embodiment of the present application.

Reference numerals:

1-a robot; 10-buses; 11-a processor; 12-memory.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application.

Like reference numerals and letters denote like items in the following figures, and thus once an item is defined in one figure, no further definition or explanation thereof is necessary in the following figures. Meanwhile, in the description of the present application, the terms "first", "second", and the like are used only to distinguish the description, and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a robot 1 according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown in fig. 1, the robot 1 includes: at least one processor 11 and a memory 12, one processor 11 being exemplified in fig. 1. The processor 11 and the memory 12 are connected by a bus 10, and the memory 12 stores instructions executable by the processor 11, which instructions are executed by the processor 11, so that the robot 1 can perform all or part of the flow of the method in the embodiments described below.

The Memory 12 may be implemented by any type of volatile or non-volatile Memory device or combination thereof, such as static random access Memory (Static Random Access Memory, SRAM), electrically erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory, EEPROM), erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory, EPROM), programmable Read-Only Memory (PROM), read-Only Memory (ROM), magnetic Memory, flash Memory, magnetic disk, or optical disk.

Specifically, the robot 1 in the present application may be a home sweeping robot, a mopping robot, a sweeping and mopping robot, a meal delivery robot in a restaurant, a service robot in a public area, or the like.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart of a workstation searching method according to an embodiment of the present application. The method is applied to the robot 1, and as shown in fig. 2, the workstation searching method in the present application may include the following steps S210 to S230.

Step S210: and generating a moving path according to the skeleton information of the target area, wherein the moving path comprises a plurality of search points, and the search points are positioned at the tail end of each skeleton branch corresponding to the moving path.

The target area may be an area where the robot 1 performs a work task. When the robot 1 is a home sweeping robot, a mopping robot, a sweeping and mopping robot, the target area is a floor area in the user's home. By way of example, the target area may be any of a living room floor, a bedroom floor, a kitchen floor, a bathroom floor, etc. in the user's home, where the robot 1 performs a sweeping task. When the robot 1 is a meal delivery robot for a restaurant, the target area may be a dining area for the restaurant, and the robot 1 performs a meal delivery task within the target area.

The target region may be composed of an obstacle region and a non-obstacle region, and the skeleton information of the target region may be obtained by performing image processing on the target region composed of the obstacle region and the non-obstacle region, the skeleton information being generated based on a navigable region of the target region. Based on the skeleton information of the target region, a movement path of the robot 1 is generated. The moving path is composed of a plurality of routes and a plurality of retrieval points, the routes are mutually and cross-connected to form skeleton branches, and the retrieval points are positioned at the tail ends of the skeleton branches. The search point is a position that the robot 1 needs to traverse when searching for the workstation. Each search point corresponds to unique coordinate information. The search points may also be end points, inflection points, or intersection points, for example.

Step S220: the control robot 1 reaches each search point in accordance with the movement path, and performs signal search at each search point.

When the movement path is obtained, the robot 1 performs signal search by controlling the robot 1 to move in accordance with the movement path and to reach each search point along the skeleton branch, respectively, at each search point.

In an embodiment, the robot 1 is controlled to rotate at the search point and search for signals from the workstation via the signal receiver while rotating.

By way of example, the robot 1 may comprise a signal sensor configured to receive a signal, the workstation may comprise a signal transmitter configured to transmit a predetermined signal, and the signal emitted by the workstation may be an ultrasonic signal or an infrared signal. The workstation may send infrared signals via a signal transmitter, while a signal sensor on the robot 1 is able to detect the infrared signals. When the robot 1 moves to the search point according to the moving path, the robot rotates 360 degrees around the search point where the robot is currently located to detect the infrared signal returned by the signal generator on the workstation, thereby searching the workstation. If the infrared signal returned by the workstation is not received at the current search point, the next search point which moves according to the moving path is continued, and the next search point is rotated for 360 degrees by taking the next search point as the center according to the same steps until the infrared signal sent by the signal generator on the workstation is received after the infrared signal is finally moved to a certain search point.

The robot 1 does not perform an operation of rotating the search signal while moving along the skeleton branch to the search point, and rotates the search signal after reaching the search point, thereby searching for information.

Step S230: based on the search results, the location of the workstation is determined.

If the robot 1 searches at one of the search points, the position of the workstation can be determined after receiving the infrared signal returned by the signal generator on the workstation. Based on the signals returned by the workstation and the position of the workstation, the robot 1 is controlled to move to the workstation and to attempt to dock with the workstation. When the docking is completed, the robot 1 is controlled to charge from the workstation. For example, if the robot 1 is a cleaning robot, the robot 1 may perform the operations of water replenishing and dust collecting of the bottom cleaning member after returning to the workstation. The workstation may perform a corresponding procedure according to the type of robot 1.

In step S210, there are two kinds of application scenes for generating a moving path in a target area, and the application scenes are divided into a scene with room information in the target area and a scene without room information in the target area. The presence of room information means that the target area can be divided into areas, which may also be referred to as room division, and the map of the target area is divided into a plurality of sub-areas or rooms.

In the application scenario with room information, step S210 specifically includes steps S211-S213.

Step S211: and processing the map of the target area.

Further, step S211 includes: and carrying out segmentation processing on the map of the target area to obtain information of each sub-area in the target area.

The map of the target area having room information is divided according to the number of sub-areas formed in the target area. After the segmentation process, the target area is divided into a plurality of sub-areas. Each sub-region information includes obstacle region information and non-obstacle region information. Each sub-area is exemplified by a room, in each of which there is an obstacle such as furniture, electric appliances, etc., and the area constituted by the obstacle such as furniture, electric appliances, etc., is the aforementioned obstacle area, and the obstacle-free aisle, aisle area, etc., is the aforementioned non-obstacle area.

Step S212: and judging whether a plurality of subareas exist in the target area according to the processing result, and if so, acquiring skeleton information in each subarea.

By way of example, the target area is a home area of the user, which is divided by room, and there may be a plurality of sub-areas, which represent individual rooms, such as a master bedroom, a secondary bedroom, a study room, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, etc. Hereinafter, the sub-areas may be referred to as rooms.

The map in the user's home is subjected to room division processing in accordance with the number of rooms, and if the user's home is made up of a plurality of rooms, skeleton information in each room needs to be acquired.

Referring to fig. 3, the specific manner of acquiring the skeleton information in each sub-area is as follows:

(1) As shown in fig. 3 (a), first, a map of a target area is binarized, and a non-obstacle area, which is a searchable area of the robot 1, is filled in, and an obstacle area, which is a non-searchable area of the robot 1, is filled in. Only in the non-obstacle region, the robot 1 can move relatively freely without being disturbed by obstacles.

(2) As shown in fig. 3 (b), the searchable area (i.e., the white-filled part of the map) is then thinned, which is to strip the binarized image layer by layer, and to subtract a part of points from the binarized image, but to keep the original shape of the non-obstacle area until the skeleton of the binarized image is obtained. The subtracted portion of the dot has little effect on the original shape of the non-obstacle region.

The skeleton is understood to be the central axis of the object. Illustratively, a rectangular skeleton is its central axis in the longitudinal direction, and a square skeleton is its central point. In the non-obstacle region, the area formed by the structures of the walkway or the aisle may be a rectangular area, a rectangular area or a circular area, and the skeleton of the structures or the shapes is obtained in the manner of fig. 3 (b). In other words, when the skeleton in the searchable area is obtained, it is equivalent to obtaining the main structural and shape information of the protruding object in the non-obstacle area.

Accordingly, the skeleton map in each room and the coordinate information of the skeleton end, that is, the coordinate information of the aforementioned search point, are obtained.

Step S213: connecting the skeletons in each subarea to generate a moving path.

As shown in fig. 3 (c), the skeletons in all the sub-areas are connected according to skeleton information such as the main structure and shape information of the protruding objects in each sub-area, and search points are set at the tail ends of the branches of each skeleton, so that a moving path when the robot 1 executes a task is finally formed.

Referring to fig. 4, if the target area is composed of a plurality of sub-areas, skeleton intersections outside each sub-area are obtained as communication points, which are shown as points in circles in fig. 4, as described in step S212. Illustratively, skeleton intersections formed outside each room serve as communication points between different rooms. The robot 1 can realize the purpose of signal search by reaching all the search points in different subareas through the communication points.

The control robot 1 moves according to the movement path and reaches each search point in different sub-areas through the communication point, and performs signal search at each search point, specifically including steps S214-S215. The coordinate information of each search point can be seen in the box of fig. 4.

Step S214: the control robot 1 moves according to the movement path to one of the sub-areas and performs a signal search at all search points within one of the sub-areas.

Step S215: when no signal is searched in one of the subareas, the control robot enters the other subarea through the communication point, and continues to search for the signal at all the search points in the other subarea until the signal is searched.

When the robot 1 moves according to the moving path to perform the task of searching the workstation, when the robot 1 is in one of the rooms, signal searching is completed at all the search points in the room in the manner of step S220, that is, after the single-room traversal search signal is completed, but the position of the workstation is not searched, the robot 1 needs to leave the current room, enter the next room, search for the search points and continue signal searching. When the robot 1 moves from the current room to the room door and needs to leave the current room door to enter the next room, the robot 1 can select a communication point outside the room, the communication point is communicated with a skeleton branch line of another room, the robot 1 moves to reach the other room according to the skeleton branch line, and also needs to search for signals at all search points in the other room, and the other single-room traversal search signal is continued in the same manner until the robot 1 passes through the search points in a plurality of rooms to search for signals, and finally the position of the workstation is determined.

Referring to fig. 5, taking an example that the robot 1 performs a signal search from one room (denoted as a room here) but does not search for a workstation position, moves to another room (denoted as B room here), the specific implementation manner that the robot moves according to a moving path and reaches each search point in different sub-areas through a communication point is as follows:

the robot 1 may be configured with a distance sensor. According to the distances between the current position of the robot 1 and the plurality of communication points, a target communication point is determined, which is the closest communication point to the current position of the robot. The exemplary robot 1 controls the robot 1 to perform signal search after reaching each search point according to the moving path in the room a and the coordinate information of each search point, and completes the room a to traverse the search point search signal. If the signal search is completed at all search points in the room a, and no signal returned by the workstation is received, it is indicated that the workstation is not in the range of the room a, and the robot 1 needs to enter other rooms to perform a new signal search. The method comprises the steps of controlling a robot 1 to move to a room A door, taking the current position of the robot 1 at the room A door as the current position, detecting the distance between the current position of the robot 1 and a plurality of communication points outside a room through a distance sensor on the robot 1, and determining the communication point closest to the current position of the robot 1 in the plurality of communication points as a target communication point according to the detection result of the distance sensor.

The control robot 1 moves to the target communication point and reaches each retrieval point in a different sub-area through the target communication point.

The control robot 1 moves to the target communication point from the current position, enters the room B through the framework branch route of the room B communicated by the target communication point, performs signal search at all search points in the room B, and completes the room B to traverse search point search signals until the signals returned by the workstation are searched. If the position of the workstation is not searched in the room B, continuing to search the room C in the same way, and searching signals at all search points in the room C to finish the process of traversing search point search signals in the room C. This achieves the object that the robot 1 performs a single-room traversal search point search signal in different rooms.

When the robot 1 switches between different rooms to perform the single-room traversal search point search signal, if the number of times of switching rooms exceeds the number of rooms, abnormal prompt information is generated and displayed, and if the number of times of switching rooms does not exceed the number of rooms, the robot 1 continues to perform the task of the single-room traversal search point search signal of the next room.

In the above embodiment, taking the example in room a, the distance sensor on the robot 1 may calculate the previous distances between the current position of the robot 1 in room a and all the search points in room a, obtain the position of the search point with the shortest distance between the current position of the robot 1 in room a and all the search points in room a, control the robot 1 to move to the search point (herein referred to as search point a), and after completing the signal search, continue to detect the distance between the search point a and all the search points remaining in room a by the distance sensor, and take the search point a where the robot 1 is currently located to the search point b with the shortest distance as the next signal search point. By adopting the above mode, the robot 1 can be controlled to select the moving mode with the shortest time consumption and highest efficiency among a plurality of search points in one room. Of course, the search point corresponding to the shortest total movement path of all the search points that the robot 1 moves through in room a may be the search point to be moved next.

The above embodiments are descriptions of how the robot 1 generates a movement path and performs a task of a workstation search through the movement path in a scene with room information.

In another application scenario, in the application scenario without interroom information, that is, the target area does not have a plurality of sub-areas.

Referring to fig. 6, since there is no room information in the target area, a global traversal of the target area is required. First, map skeleton information of a target area is acquired. Specifically, the map of the target area is subjected to binarization processing and thinning processing in the manner of step S212. Unlike the foregoing, in the present embodiment, the room dividing process is not performed in the target area.

After the processing, map skeleton information of the target area is obtained, which includes a plurality of skeleton branch lines (or referred to as skeleton diagrams), so as to generate a movement path of the robot 1, specifically referring to fig. 7. The search point is still located at the end of the backbone branch, see in particular fig. 8. The map skeleton information of the target area includes a skeleton map and coordinate information of each search point.

After confirming the coordinate information of the search points to be traversed in the map of the target area, traversing all the search points along the skeleton map, and controlling the robot 1 to perform signal search at all the search points until the workstation position is searched.

However, in a practical case, the robot 1 may have a case where the workstation is not in the target area when performing the workstation search task. Therefore, before the robot 1 performs the task of searching for the workstation, it is necessary to make a judgment in advance to determine whether the workstation 1 is within the target area.

By way of example, a signal command is sent by the robot 1 to the workstation, indicating that the workstation is not in the target area if no signal fed back by the workstation has been received within a preset time (e.g. between 5s and 10 s). At this time, the search abnormality notification is generated and displayed on the display screen of the robot 1. So that the user can learn that the robot 1 does not find a workstation in the target area. Then the robot 1 does not have to perform the task of looking up the workstation in this target area anymore. If the robot 1 sends a signal instruction to the workstation and receives a signal fed back by the workstation within a preset time, the workstation is indicated to be in the target area.

At this time, the control robot 1 moves to each search point according to the movement path, and performs signal search at each search point. The manner in which the robot 1 performs the signal search at each search point is shown in step S220, and will not be described here again.

Because the work station is in the target area, the robot 1 searches signals at different search points, the strength of the signals returned by the work station received by the robot 1 is different based on the difference of the distances between the search points and the work station, when the robot 1 finishes the signal search at all the search points, the processor 11 in the robot 1 determines the search point with the strongest signal as the closest search point to the work station according to the strength of the signals returned by the work station, so that the robot 1 determines the position of the work station according to the returned signals and controls the robot 1 to move to the work station.

By adopting the workstation searching method shown in fig. 2-8, a single room or a whole area can be quickly traversed according to whether the room information exists in the target area, so that the workstation is searched, and the efficiency of searching the workstation by the robot 1 is improved.

Fig. 9 is a flowchart of a workstation searching method according to another embodiment of the present application, and the method specifically includes steps S900-S917.

Step S900: the workstation location is looked up.

An instruction to find a workstation is issued to the robot 1, and the robot 1 receives the instruction and starts to enter a ready state.

Step S901: it is determined whether room information exists in the target area. If yes, go to step S902, otherwise, go to step S911.

Step S902: all room skeletons are extracted.

If room information exists in the target area, the map of the target area needs to be segmented to obtain each piece of room information in the target area. The details of this step can be referred to in detail from step S211 to step S212, and will not be described here again.

Step S903: and acquiring a communication point.

The target area is composed of a plurality of rooms, skeleton intersection points outside each room are obtained to serve as communication points, and the robot 1 can achieve the purpose of achieving signal searching by reaching all retrieval points in different sub-areas through the communication points. The details of this step may be referred to in detail in step S213, and will not be described here again.

Step S904: a single room search.

The control robot 1 moves according to the movement path, reaches each search point in different rooms through the communication point, performs signal search at each search point, completes single-room traversal, and performs workstation search. The details of this step may be referred to in detail in step S214, and will not be described herein.

Step S905: whether a workstation is found is determined, if not, step S906 is executed, and if yes, step S908 is executed.

When the robot 1 moves according to the moving path to perform the task of searching for the workstation, when the robot 1 is in one of the rooms, signal searching is completed at all the search points in the room in the manner of step S220, but the position of the workstation is not searched, the robot 1 needs to leave the current room and enter the next room, searching for the search points continues to perform signal searching until the signal position is searched. The details of this step can be referred to in detail in step S215, and will not be described here again.

Step S906: the room is switched.

The control robot 1 moves to another room according to the communication point, and continues the single-room traversal.

Step S907: and judging that the number of times of switching rooms exceeds the number of rooms, if so, generating and displaying abnormal prompt information, and if not, continuing to execute the step S904.

The robot 1, when performing the task of finding the workstation, cannot switch between different rooms an unlimited number of times, and therefore it is necessary to set a threshold value for indicating the maximum number of times of switching rooms, at most not higher than the number of rooms. As is clear from the judgment, if the number of times of switching rooms exceeds the number of rooms, the abnormality notification is generated and displayed, and if the number of times of switching rooms does not exceed the number of rooms, the robot 1 continues to perform the task of single-room traversal search point search signal for the next room, that is, performs step S904.

Step S908: workstation coordinates are determined.

If the robot 1 searches for the position of the workstation after traversing the plurality of rooms, the robot 1 can acquire the coordinate information of the position of the workstation and move to the position of the workstation according to the coordinate information of the position of the workstation.

Step S909: and ending the search.

When the robot 1 completes the workstation search, it is necessary to move the position of the workstation because of the influence of some objective factors, and thus, the step S910 is continued to be performed.

Step S910: and judging whether the real-time coordinates of the workstation are consistent with the determined coordinates or within a preset deviation range, if so, maintaining the step S909, and if not, executing the step S904.

In this step, if the real-time coordinates (or may also be referred to as the current coordinates) of the workstation coincide with the coordinates determined in step S908, or the real-time coordinates of the workstation have an error with the coordinates determined in step S908, but the error is within a preset deviation range, it is considered that the workstation is not moved, or the moved position is very small and is basically ignored, and the robot 1 still maintains the state of ending the search. If the real-time coordinates of the workstation do not coincide with the coordinates determined in step S908, or if the real-time coordinates of the workstation have a large error from the coordinates determined in step S908, and exceed a preset deviation range, the workstation is considered to be moved, and at this time, the robot 1 re-executes steps S904 to S909 to perform a single-room search until the workstation is found.

Step S911: and extracting the whole map skeleton.

If no room information exists in the target area, global traversal of the target area is needed. And acquiring map skeleton information of the target area. The map of the target area is subjected to binarization processing and refinement processing, and room segmentation processing is not performed in the target area.

Step S912: traversing the whole map.

After confirming the coordinate information of the search points to be traversed in the map of the target area, traversing all the search points along the skeleton map.

Step S913: whether a workstation is found is determined, if so, step S914 and step S915 are performed, and if not, step S917 is performed.

The robot 1 searches signals at different search points, the strength of signals returned by the work stations received by the robot 1 is different based on the difference of the distances between the search points and the work stations, when the robot 1 completes the signal search at all the search points, the processor 11 in the robot 1 determines the search point with the strongest signal as the closest search point to the work stations according to the strength of the signals returned by the work stations, so that the robot 1 determines the position of the work stations and the coordinate information of the position of the work stations according to the returned signals, and controls the robot 1 to move to the work stations according to the coordinate information of the position of the work stations, thereby completing the work station search and ending the search.

Step S914: workstation coordinates are determined.

If the robot 1 searches the position of the workstation after traversing the full map, the robot 1 can acquire the coordinate information of the position of the workstation and move to the position of the workstation according to the coordinate information of the position of the workstation.

Step S915: and ending the search.

Step S916: and judging whether the real-time coordinates of the workstation are consistent with the determined coordinates or within a preset deviation range, if so, maintaining the step S915, and if not, executing the step S912.

As with the principle described in step S910, after the robot 1 performs the map-full traversal search without the room information and finds the workstation, it is necessary to continuously determine whether the workstation position is moved. Similarly, if the workstation is moved, the robot 1 re-executes steps S912 to S915 to perform the full map traversal search for the workstation until the workstation is found. If no movement of the workstation occurs, the robot 1 remains in a state in which the search is ended.

Step S917: judging whether a preset threshold value is exceeded. If yes, generating and displaying the searching abnormality prompt information, and if not, continuing to execute the steps S912-S915 until the workstation is found.

The robot 1 encounters an obstacle in the moving process, or the robot 1 cannot smoothly perform traversal search in the whole map due to darker light, and the reasons can cause that the robot 1 cannot search a workstation, so that an abnormality prompt alarm mechanism in the robot 1 is triggered to prompt abnormal information. Therefore, in order to avoid frequently triggering the abnormality alert mechanism of the robot 1, this step may set a preset threshold judgment condition, where the preset threshold is used to represent the maximum value of the number of times of generating the search abnormality alert information, and the preset threshold is exemplified as 3 times.

Step S911 is continuously executed by judging whether the number of times of generating the searching abnormality prompt information by the robot 1 exceeds a preset threshold value for 3 times, if not, the step S911 is continuously executed, namely the robot 1 continuously executes the full map to carry out traversal searching, and the task of the workstation is searched; if the number of times exceeds 3, the searching abnormal prompt information is finally generated and displayed. For example, the search abnormality notification may be generated and displayed on the display screen of the robot 1. The user can learn that the robot 1 does not find a workstation in the target area.

The workstation searching method shown in fig. 9 can also solve the problem of how to quickly search the workstation by the robot 1 after the workstation is moved, thereby updating the position of the workstation in time and improving the efficiency of searching the workstation by the robot 1.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, the disclosed apparatus and method may be implemented in other manners. The apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative, for example, flow diagrams and block diagrams in the figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of apparatus, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present application. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems which perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.

In addition, the functional modules in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated together to form a single part, or each module may exist alone, or two or more modules may be integrated to form a single part.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional modules and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored on a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present application may be embodied essentially or in a part contributing to the prior art or in a part of the technical solution, in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium, including several instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to perform all or part of the steps of the methods of the embodiments of the present application.

Claims (10)

1. A workstation searching method, characterized by being applied to a robot, the method comprising:

generating a moving path according to skeleton information of a target area, wherein the moving path comprises a plurality of search points, and the search points are positioned at the tail end of each skeleton branch corresponding to the moving path;

controlling the robot to reach each retrieval point according to the moving path, and searching signals at each retrieval point;

and determining the position of the workstation according to the search result.

2. The workstation searching method according to claim 1, wherein the generating a moving path from skeleton information of a target area includes:

processing the map of the target area;

judging whether a plurality of subareas exist in the target area according to a processing result, and if so, acquiring skeleton information in each subarea;

connecting the skeletons in each sub-region to generate the moving path.

3. The workstation searching method of claim 2, wherein the processing the map of the target area comprises:

and carrying out segmentation processing on the map of the target area to obtain information of each sub-area in the target area.

4. The workstation searching method of claim 2, wherein generating a moving path from skeleton information of a target, further comprises:

if a plurality of subareas exist, acquiring skeleton intersection points outside each subarea as communication points;

if a plurality of sub-areas do not exist, map skeleton information of the target area is obtained;

and generating the moving path according to the map skeleton information of the target area.

5. The workstation searching method according to claim 4, wherein said controlling the robot to reach each of the search points in accordance with the moving path and perform a signal search at each of the search points comprises:

and controlling the robot to move according to the moving path, reaching each retrieval point in different sub-areas through the communication point, and searching signals at each retrieval point.

6. The workstation searching method according to claim 5, wherein said controlling said robot to move in accordance with said movement path and to reach each of said search points in different ones of said sub-areas through said communication point comprises:

determining a target communication point according to the distance between the current position of the robot and a plurality of communication points, wherein the target communication point is the communication point closest to the current position of the robot;

and controlling the robot to move to the target communication point and reach each retrieval point in different sub-areas through the target communication point.

7. The workstation searching method according to claim 5, wherein said controlling said robot to move in accordance with said movement path and to reach each of said search points in different ones of said sub-areas through said communication point, performing a signal search at each of said search points, comprises:

controlling the robot to move to one of the subareas according to the moving path, and searching signals at all the retrieval points in one of the subareas;

and when no signal is searched in one of the subareas, controlling the robot to enter the other subarea through the communication point, and continuing to search for the signal at all the retrieval points in the other subarea until the signal is searched.

8. The workstation searching method according to claim 4, wherein if there are no plurality of sub-areas, acquiring map skeleton information of the target area, generating the moving path according to the map skeleton information of the target area, further comprising:

judging whether the workstation exists in the target area or not;

if the map skeleton information exists, generating the moving path according to the map skeleton information of the target area, controlling the robot to move to each search point according to the moving path, and searching signals at each search point;

if the search anomaly prompt information does not exist, generating and displaying the search anomaly prompt information.

9. The workstation searching method according to claim 1, wherein the robot is mounted with a signal receiver, and the signal searching at each of the search points comprises:

and controlling the robot to rotate at the retrieval point, and searching for a signal sent by the workstation through the signal receiver while rotating.

10. The workstation searching method of claim 1, wherein determining the location of the workstation based on the search results comprises:

when a return signal of the workstation is detected, the robot is controlled to move to the workstation according to the position of the workstation indicated by the return signal.

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