IT202000026404A1 - INTELLIGENT CLEANING DEVICE FOR STREET SWEEPING AND CLEANING SERVICE MONITORING - Google Patents

Description

Description of the invention entitled:

?INTELLIGENT CLEANING DEVICE FOR STREET SWEEPING AND CLEANING SERVICE MONITORING?

Description

field of technique

The present invention operates in the field of cleaning and sanitizing devices for environments, such as brooms, mops, rags, vacuum cleaners and wet vacuum cleaners, electric brooms, steam mops and, more in general, for all the devices that the cleaning operator carries continuously while carrying out his work.

Known art

Cleaning undoubtedly corresponds to the essential services for any user, for any activity? productive and commercial as well as? for Municipalities regarding the street sweeping service and city squares. To date, in fact, there are numerous companies that provide cleaning services, sending operators and material directly to the places to be cleaned. The ministries and, in general, almost all public buildings, schools, universities, production plants, municipalities, etc. benefit from these services, contracted out to third parties. Contracting the service to third parties means that the cleaning supplier guarantees the quality of the service. of the service for which the customer is paying. However, it often happens that the customer has the feeling that the operators sent do not carry out the cleaning job optimally, without however? have tools or objective data to be able to bring forward a dispute against the service provider.

Likewise the company who provides cleaning service does not ? able to punctually and constantly and continuously monitor the quality? of the service performed by its employees sent to the places to be cleaned.

It follows a general confusion and the need? to contract out similar services only to trusted entities, thus relying more? on subjective and objective data. There is, to date, on the market, no tool to monitor the quality? of the cleaning carried out by an operator without violating his privacy. Forcing a worker to wear a webcam or a position marker would, in fact, be a serious abuse of his position as an employee and, in such cases of excessive monitoring, the employer is almost always liable to prosecution by law. Some industrial property rights have tried to circumvent the problem by making ?intelligent? and monitored the tools with which the operator works. An example of it? the utility model? Chinese published under the no. CN205616019U. The utility model? claims a set consisting of a smart broom and dustbin. In this invention, the work of the operator? facilitated by the fact that the bin follows the broom and therefore the operator himself, avoiding him having to lift it continuously.

? evident as the one just described, cos? like the other solutions currently available on the market, are unable to solve the problems previously described. The object of the present invention is, therefore, to fill this gap in the technique by providing an intelligent cleaning device able to supply useful data to the operator on the cleaning methods. of use of the device itself and therefore the quality? of cleaning.

Description of the invention

According to the present invention there is provided an intelligent cleaning device for monitoring the street cleaning and sweeping service which effectively solves the above problems.

The intelligent cleaning device of the present invention therefore detects that the operator who handles it uses it correctly in the envisaged environments.

For this purpose, the device, in its most recent version? simple, includes:

- a GPS tracking device, for open places or closed places; - an accelerometer or a gyroscope, designed to detect the repeated movements that the operator must give to the device for correct use;

- proximity sensor? to detect the proximity, within a predetermined radius, of at least one further cleaning device;

- at least one rechargeable battery.

All the collected data is sent, via means of connection to the Internet, to a central server installed in an operations centre. This ? connected to a database for storing the data detected and ? equipped with software capable of issuing alarm signals at least in the following cases:

? at pre-established times, the connection of a device whose use was foreseen is not detected;

? a device moves too far from a pre-assigned area; ? more devices are too close to each other for a long time during service hours;

? of a device, only one piece of data is detected between the geographical movement and the movement via the accelerometer.

In some embodiments more? advantageous, the proximity sensor? ? designed to act as an identification badge to request and obtain access to any areas with restricted access. This obviously includes a step for setting up an access control system in the building that requires the cleaning service and a further step for authorizing access to the cleaners.

In another version even more? advantageously, the device of the present invention, be it a broom (or the like) or a vacuum cleaner (or the like), comprises at least one brightness sensor? connected to a light capable of turning on automatically when the brightness? should be detected too low.

The device can it also comprises a shock sensor suitable for detecting any repeated shocks of the device. In this case the software ? able to signal the bad treatment of the device by the operator.

The device can further comprising an odometer device, able to count the distance traveled by said device allowing the software to plan the maintenance and replacement of the devices or their components.

The device can furthermore comprising at least one biometric recognition device capable of associating the use of the device to a specific operator who has previously provided his biometric recognition data, this data being saved in the database connected to said server.

The device can furthermore comprising a common hands-free communication system capable of allowing the transmission of vocal messages between the operator who handles the device itself and the operations centre.

Finally, in a further variant, the rechargeable battery of the device? installed at the interchangeable head. What? by doing the monitoring data can be collected and sent to the server only when the interchangeable head is connected to the handle of the device, determining the exact start time of the service.

The advantages offered by the present invention are evident in the light of the description set forth up to now and will be even more clear thanks to the annexed figures and the relative detailed description.

Description of the figures

The invention will come described hereinafter in at least one preferred embodiment by way of explanation and not of limitation with the aid of the accompanying figures, in which:

- FIGURE 1 shows a broom 10 to which the technologies present in the present invention are applied. In this embodiment, the battery 23 is integrated in the interchangeable head 20.

- FIGURE 2 illustrates a vacuum cleaner 10? with the same advantages.

- FIGURE 3 shows two paths performed by cleaning operators during which the position of the cleaning devices 10-10 is detected? which they hold in hand. Is it seen as in survey station B-B? an excessive proximity between the devices is detected and an alarm or error signal is sent to the central server and to the operations centre.

Detailed description of the invention

This invention will come now illustrated purely by way of example but not in a limiting or binding way, making use of the figures which illustrate some embodiments with respect to the present inventive concept.

Referring to FIG. 3 ? shown is an example of use of the present invention in which, for carrying out a cleaning service, two operators are assigned two different paths: a zig-zag path to the first operator and a straight path to the second operator.

To each operator? otherwise? assigned a 10-10 device? according to the present invention, which, in addition to detecting its position, also detects its state of use or non-use, thanks to an accelerometer 12.

Assuming the fact that each operator, from the beginning to the end of his journey, is using the device correctly, we see from figure 3 that in the detection point B-B?, through the proximity sensor? 13, the 10-10 device? of the second operator is detected very close to the device 10-10? of the first operator. In this case, in the operations center will leave? an alarm signal to verify that the second operator has not voluntarily moved away from his path just to reach the first operator, without a real need? working.

The rest of the detection stations of the devices 10-10?, as can be seen in figure 3, are detected either through the aforementioned proximity sensor? 13 or via a GPS position tracking device 11.

? finally, it is clear that modifications, additions or variations that are obvious to a person skilled in the art can be made to the invention described up to now, without thereby departing from the scope of protection which ? provided by the appended claims.

Claims (10)

Claims 1. Intelligent cleaning device (10-10?) for monitoring the street cleaning and sweeping service, adapted to detect the movement and correct use by an operator of the device (10-10?) itself; said device (10-10?) comprising a fixed portion and an interchangeable head (20) and being characterized in that it comprises: - a position detection device (11), for example by means of a GPS signal or other system suitable for closed places; - an accelerometer (12) or a gyroscope, adapted to detect the repeated movements that the operator must apply to said cleaning device (10-10?) for correct use; - proximity sensor? (13) adapted to detect the proximity, within a predetermined range, of at least one further device (10-10?); - at least one rechargeable battery (23); - means of connection to the internet for the communication of the data collected to a central server installed in an operations centre; said central server being connected to a database for storing the detected data; said central server comprising software suitable for issuing alarm signals at least in the following cases: ? at pre-established times, the connection of a device (10-10?) whose use was foreseen is not detected; ? a device (10-10?) moves too far from a pre-assigned area; ? more devices (10-10?) are too close to each other for a long time during service hours; ? of a device (10-10?) only one datum is detected between the geographical displacement and the movement via the accelerometer (12). 2. Intelligent cleaning device (10-10?) for monitoring the cleaning and street sweeping service, according to the preceding claim 1, characterized in that said proximity sensor? (13) ? designed to act as an identification badge to request and obtain access to any areas with restricted access, allowing cleaning operations also in these areas. 3. Intelligent cleaning device (10-10?) for monitoring the street cleaning and sweeping service, according to any of the preceding claims 1 or 2, characterized in that it comprises at least one brightness sensor? (14) connected to a light (15) capable of turning on automatically when the brightness? should be detected too low. 4. Intelligent cleaning device (10-10?) for monitoring the cleaning and street sweeping service, according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises a shock sensor suitable for detecting any repeated impacts of the device (10 -10?); said software being able to signal the bad treatment of the device (10-10?) by the operator. 5. Intelligent cleaning device (10-10?) for monitoring the street cleaning and sweeping service, according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said rechargeable battery (23) ? installed in correspondence with said interchangeable head (20). 6. Intelligent cleaning device (10-10?) for monitoring the street cleaning and sweeping service, according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises an odometer device, suitable for counting the distance covered by said device (10 -10?) allowing said software to plan the maintenance and replacement of the devices (10-10?) or their components. 7. Intelligent cleaning device (10-10?) for monitoring the cleaning and street sweeping service, according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises at least one biometric recognition device capable of associating the use of the device ( 10-10?) to a specific operator who has previously provided his biometric identification data, this data being saved in the database connected to said server. 8. Intelligent cleaning device (10-10?) for monitoring the cleaning and street sweeping service, according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises a common hands-free communication system capable of allowing the transmission of voice messages between the operator who handles said device (10-10?) and said operations centre. 9. Intelligent cleaning device (10) for monitoring the street cleaning and sweeping service, according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it is a broom, a mop or any other surface cleaning device consisting of a handle and a cleaning head. 10. Intelligent cleaning device (10?) for monitoring the cleaning and street sweeping service, according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it is a vacuum cleaner or a wet vacuum cleaner.