JP3451780B2 - Mobile work robot - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a mobile work robot having a main body having a self-propelled function and a power source and automatically performing work such as floor cleaning and floor finishing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A mobile work robot that has a self-propelled function added to a work device such as a vacuum cleaner or a floor washer and uses a storage battery as a power source to improve work efficiency and automation has a battery in the body. Even if the battery can be charged with the battery installed, it is often desirable to replace the battery and continue the work without waiting for the charging time in order to improve work efficiency.

In response to such demands, recently, a mobile work robot has been developed in consideration of the operability of battery attachment / detachment in consideration of battery replacement during work.

For example, in the mobile work robot shown in FIG. 8, an opening 2 for taking out a battery is provided at a rear portion of a main body 1, and a door body 3 rotatably supported on a horizontal axis below the main body 1 serves as a floor surface. Since the handle 5 that opens in the parallel direction and has the buckle 4 released contacts the floor surface to support the door body 3, the door body 3 serves as a cradle for the battery 6, and the battery 6 can be easily pulled out and inserted. Become. Further, even if the power feeding connector 8 connected to the power supply terminal 7 of each battery 6 is connected to any power receiving connector 9 of the main body 1, the circuit is wired in series within the main body 1 so that each battery 6
That is, they can be treated equally without distinction.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional mobile work robot, after the battery is replaced, if the door lock is operated without confirming that the door is completely closed, There is a danger that the door will open and the battery will pop out of the main body due to vibration during operation, and in order to avoid this, it was necessary to use metal fittings or screws to fix the battery in the main body. However, this work of fixing the metal fittings and screws is very troublesome when the batteries are frequently replaced, and in some rare cases, the work may be forgotten.

Further, in the conventional mobile work robot, a plurality of heavy batteries are separately mounted on the main body because of the weight of a person to lift, but the mounting work takes time and the power supply terminal The connection was troublesome and the operability was not good.

[0007] Conventionally, the battery is charged by transporting the main body to a warehouse or the like having a charger while the battery is mounted on the main body, or by transporting the battery taken out from the main body to a place having the charger. In most cases, the mobile work robot, which performs continuous work while replacing the battery in a wide area, needs to charge the battery during the work operation, so extra transport work is inevitable. Was there.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, the first object of the present invention is to provide a mobile work robot which can easily fix a battery to a main body and which is excellent in operability without forgetting to fix the battery. Has an aim.

Further, in relation to the first object, even if the battery is not fixed to the main body by any chance, the battery does not jump out of the main body during traveling, and there is no danger of moving work with high safety. The second purpose is to provide a robot
There is.

[0010]

The first means of the present invention for achieving the above first object is to rotate an opening for taking out a battery from a main body and a horizontal axis below the opening. The main body is provided with a mounting door for opening and closing the battery for mounting the battery, and a cover door for rotatably opening and closing with respect to a lateral vertical axis of the opening to cover the outer surface of the mounting door. The door has a latch mechanism that holds the main body in the closed state, and when the latch mechanism is released, the placing door and the cover door are brought into contact with each other to interfere with each other.

[0011] second means of the present invention for achieving the second object, in addition to the first means, Oh which was a switch means for cutting off the power of the traveling device when opening the cover door
It

[0012]

According to the first means of the present invention, when the loading door is closed, it is held in the main body in the closed state by the latch mechanism, so that the battery can be fixed so as not to jump out from the main body, and if the loading door is closed. If the closing mechanism of the battery is incomplete and the latch mechanism is in the released state, the cover door cannot be closed due to contact interference with the cover door, and this incomplete condition is immediately noticed. It will never be forgotten.

According to the second means of the present invention, the mounting door is incompletely closed, and even if an attempt is made to operate the cover door without closing it, the power supply of the traveling device is turned on by the switch means of the cover door. There is no danger of the batteries popping out while the main unit is running, because it is cut off and does not start running .

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A first embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings, taking a floor cleaning robot as an example.

1 and 2 show the entire construction of the floor cleaning robot of this embodiment. In the figure, 11 is a main body of the floor cleaning robot, 12 is a drive wheel provided on the left and right rear of the main body 11, and the left and right are independently driven by a traveling motor 13. Reference numeral 14 is a follower wheel rotatably attached to the front of the main body 11.
As described above, the drive wheel 12, the traveling motor 13, and the driven wheel 14 are the main body 1
1 constitutes a traveling device for self-propelled. Reference numeral 15 is an electric blower, 16 is a dust collecting chamber, and 17 is a filter made of a paper bag provided inside thereof.

Reference numeral 18 is a floor nozzle provided in front of the bottom of the main body 11 and has a rotary agitator 19 for scraping up dust on the floor surface. The floor nozzle 18 is connected to the dust collection chamber 16 via a connection pipe 20 and a telescopic hose 21, and dust on the floor surface is sucked by the electric blower 15 and collected in the filter 17. Two
Reference numeral 2 denotes a floor nozzle suspension lever disposed between the left and right driving devices, which is rotatably supported by a lever rotation shaft 23, whereby the floor nozzle 18 is vertically movably attached to the main body 11. . The electric blower 15, the dust collection chamber 16, the filter 17, the floor nozzle 18, the connecting pipe 20, the telescopic hose 21, the floor nozzle suspension lever 22, and the lever rotation shaft 23 constitute a working device for performing dust collection work.

Reference numeral 24 is a distance-measuring sensor including an ultrasonic sensor or the like provided around the main body 11, which is an obstacle for detecting an obstacle by measuring a distance to an object located on the front, left and right sides of the main body 11, or behind the main body 11. It constitutes an object detection device. Reference numeral 25 is a bumper made of an elastic body attached to the periphery of the main body 11. Reference numeral 26 denotes a travel control device for controlling the travel of the main body 11. The travel motor 13 is based on data from a position recognition means (not shown) such as a gyro and an obstacle detection device.
Control the movement of the main body 11 such as forward / backward / direction change / stop.

Reference numeral 27 denotes an operation unit, which is a switch and L
The main body 11 is operated by the operation panel 28 equipped with an indicator such as an ED and a buzzer. Reference numeral 29 denotes a main body handle, which can be manually moved by holding the traveling lever 30 with a hand when manually cleaning or moving between places. Reference numeral 31 denotes an emergency stop switch. When the switch is pressed in an emergency, the main body 11 is completely stopped. Reference numeral 32 is a power switch composed of a key switch.

Reference numeral 33 denotes a battery box, which stores two batteries 34 (same shape as the battery 6 shown in FIG. 8), which are storage batteries, connected in series and supplies electric power to the entire main body. Reference numeral 33a denotes a handle attached to the side surface of the battery box 33, which is used when the battery box 33 is pulled out from the opening 40 of the main body 11. Reference numeral 35 denotes a power connector connected to each battery terminal of the battery 34, which is fixed to the upper portion of the lid of the battery box 33 and detachably connected to a power plug 37 connected to a power cord 36 of the main body 11. The battery 34 is charged by removing the power plug 37 from the power connector 35 and inserting the charging plug of the charger instead. Also, the battery box 3
Rollers 38 are rotatably attached to both sides of the front bottom portion of the roller 3.

Reference numeral 39 denotes a mounting door which is pivotably opened and closed with respect to a lower horizontal shaft 41 of an opening 40 at the rear of the main body 11. In the opened state, the mounting door opens horizontally as shown in FIG. 33 can be placed. When the loading door 39 is closed, it can be held on the main body 11 by a latch mechanism including a latch shaft 42 and the like. Reference numeral 43 denotes a cover door that opens and closes rotatably with respect to the lateral vertical shaft 44 of the opening 40 and covers the outer surface of the mounting door 39. Reference numeral 45 denotes a switch means composed of a micro switch, which is attached to a position where it is turned on / off by opening and closing the cover door 43, and shuts off the power supply of the traveling device when the cover door 43 is opened.

This floor cleaning robot has several operation modes. For example, by turning on the power switch 32 and placing the main body 11 at a right angle to the reference wall of the cleaning area,
When you press the start button on the operation panel 28, the electric blower 1
5 is activated to start traveling straight ahead. While traveling, dust collection work is performed by the work device, and the distance sensor 24 always measures the distance to the surrounding obstacle and the position recognition means measures the traveling distance.

When the main body 11 approaches the front wall by a predetermined distance, the main body 11 is temporarily stopped, then the main body angle is swung by a predetermined angle to change the direction, and then the vehicle travels straight backward. While going straight backwards,
The previously measured forward distance is set as the target distance, and when the traveling distance measured by the position recognition means becomes equal to this, the vehicle stops. At this time, if there is an obstacle before reaching the target traveling distance, the vehicle stops so as not to collide with it. After stopping,
The body angle is swung again to change the direction, and forward straight ahead is started. In the same manner, the traveling surface is cleaned while traveling in the entire cleaning area by repeating the same operation, such as once stopping and then changing direction and then going straight backward, and once stopping and changing direction and going forward and going straight.

An embodiment of the first means of the present invention in the floor cleaning robot constructed as described above will be described with reference to FIG.

As described above, the mounting door 39 is rotatably opened and closed with respect to the lower horizontal shaft 41, and horizontally opens in the open state, on which the battery box 33 can be mounted. As shown in the figure, the latch shaft 42 is slidably attached to the mounting door 39, and is biased by a spring 46 in the direction of arrow a. When the loading door 39 is closed, the latch shaft 42 rides over the claws 48 of the latch plate 47 attached to the left and right of the opening 40, so that the latch shaft 42 and the latch plate 47 are fixed and the loading door 39 is attached to the main body 11. Retained. In this state, the cover door 43 can be closed, and the battery box 33 does not pop out from the opening 40 of the main body 11 by the mounting door 39. In this way, the battery box 33 can be easily fixed to the main body 11 simply by closing the mounting door 39.

If the mounting door 39 is not completely closed and the latch shaft 42 does not ride over the claw portion 48 of the latch plate 47, the latch shaft 42 is urged by the spring 46 into the claw portion 4.
Since it is pushed back to the tip of 8, the outer surface of the mounting door 39 and the inner surface of the cover door 43 interfere with each other even if the cover door 43 is closed, and the cover door 43 cannot be closed. Therefore, since this imperfect state is immediately noticed, the user never forgets to fix the battery box 33 to the main body 11.

Next, an embodiment of the second means of the present invention will be described.

As described above, in this embodiment, the switch means 45 is turned on / off by opening / closing the cover door 43.
It is attached to the position where the cover door 43 is opened, and the power of the traveling device is cut off when the cover door 43 is opened. Therefore,
As described above, the mounting door 39 is not completely closed and the cover door 4
Should 3 remain unclosed, should power switch 3
Even if 2 is inserted and the operation is started, the traveling device is turned off and the traveling is not started. Therefore, there is no danger that the battery box 33 pops out while the main body 11 is traveling.

Next, a battery exchange of the floor cleaning robot of the present invention is performed.
A first reference example regarding replacement will be described with reference to FIGS.

In the figure, 50 is a battery-carrying trolley independent of the main body 11, and the upper mounting surface 51 is a guide plate 5 so that a plurality of battery boxes 33, 33 'can be mounted in parallel.
Divided by 2, the caster 5 is rotatable on the bottom.
3 and has a handle pipe 54 for pushing by hand. The height of the mounting surface 51 is higher than the height of the mounting surface when the mounting door 39 is opened.

The operation of replacing the battery of the main body 11 by using such a battery-mounted carriage 50 will be described.

First, the cover door 43 of the main body 11 and the placing door 3
9 is opened, and the handle pipe 54 of the battery-equipped dolly 50 is manually pushed to operate it sideways so that the opening 40 of the main body 11 and the empty compartment of the mounting surface 51 are aligned as shown in the figure.
Next, as shown in FIG. 5, the handle 33 of the battery box 33
When a is held and pulled in the direction of arrow b, the roller 38 rolls on the base surface 11 ′ of the main body 11, so that the battery box 33 can be easily pulled out with a light force. And
As shown in FIG. 6, when the power plug 37 is pulled out from the power connector 35 and the handle 33a is lifted in the direction of the arrow c and pulled slightly, the battery box 33 moves the roller 38 as a fulcrum on the mounting surface of the mounting door 39. While rolling, it will be pulled up on the mounting surface 51 of the battery-mounted carriage 50.

The battery box 33 on the mounting surface 51 is slid all the way along the guide plate 52 and mounted at a predetermined position. Next, the battery carrier 50 is manually moved so that the opening 40 of the main body 11 and the charged battery box 33 ′ on the mounting surface 51 are aligned with each other, and an operation opposite to that described above is performed. The battery box 33 ′ can be transferred from the mounting carriage 50 to the main body 11. As described above, the entire battery boxes 33 and 33 ′ are lifted by the height relationship between the roller 38 provided at the bottom corner of the battery box 33, the mounting surface of the mounting door 39, and the mounting surface 51 of the battery mounting carriage 50. Without this, transfer can be done easily with light force.

As described above, since two batteries 34 can be housed and the battery box 33 having the rotatable roller 38 at the bottom can be easily transferred between the main body 11 and the battery-equipped carriage 50, the main body 11 can be easily transferred. In battery replacement and charging work,
It is not necessary to carry the battery 33, and even when a plurality of batteries 33 are used in this way, the operation of attaching and detaching the battery 34 to and from the main body 11 can be performed once.

Finally, the battery of the floor cleaning robot of the present invention
A second reference example regarding replacement will be described with reference to FIGS.

As shown in the figure, the battery-equipped trolley 50 is provided with a charger 55 below the handle pipe 54 for pushing by hand. Reference numerals 56 and 56 'denote charging plugs, which are respectively connected to the charging cords 57 and 57' of the charger 55 and inserted into the power supply connectors 35 and 35 'of the battery boxes 33 and 33', respectively. Reference numeral 58 denotes a power cord of the charger 55, which is connected to an outlet to supply power to the charger 55.

By providing the charger 55 on the battery-equipped dolly 50, it is possible to charge the battery-equipped dolly 50 at the same time with the battery boxes 33 and 33 'mounted on the battery-equipped dolly 50, as shown in FIG. 7, for example. In the mobile work robot of this embodiment, the operable time of one set of the battery box 33 is 1 hour, and the charging time is 1.5 hours. Therefore, the main body 11 is operated while simultaneously charging the two sets of battery boxes. ,
If the battery is replaced every hour, continuous operation is possible, and full day and night operation is also possible.

As described above, since all the battery boxes 33 and 33 'required for replacement are mounted on the battery-carrying trolley 50 and the charger 55 for charging the batteries is provided, even the power source of the charger 55 is not limited. For example, since charging can be done at the work place, it is not necessary to carry out extra transportation work for charging.

[0038]

As described above, according to the first means of the present invention, it is possible to realize the mobile work robot which is easy to fix the battery to the main body, and which is excellent in operability without forgetting to fix the battery. is there.

According to the second means of the present invention, even if the battery is not sufficiently fixed to the main body, the battery does not jump out of the main body during traveling, and the safety is excellent. A mobile work robot can be realized .

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of a floor cleaning robot showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a rear perspective view of the floor cleaning robot of the same embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an operation explanatory view of a mounting door showing an embodiment of the first means of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a floor cleaning robot and a battery-carrying trolley showing a first reference example of the present invention .

FIG. 5 is a sectional view of the main part of the floor cleaning robot.

FIG. 6 is a sectional view of the main part of the same floor cleaning cleaning robot.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of a vehicle carrying a battery showing a second reference example of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a rear perspective view of a conventional mobile work robot.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 body 12 drive wheels 13 Travel motor 14 followers 15 Electric blower 16 Dust collection chamber 17 Filter 18 floor nozzle 33 battery box 34 batteries 35 power connector 38 roller 39 mounting door 40 opening 41 Lower horizontal axis 42 Latch shaft 43 cover door 44 lateral vertical axis 45 switch means

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Mitsuyasu Ogawa 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Toshiaki Fujiwara 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Company (72) Inventor Osamu Eguchi 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma-shi, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Hirofumi Inui 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma-shi, Osaka Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Invention Satoshi Takagi 1006, Kadoma, Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Takafumi Ishibashi 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Pref. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Yoshiki Kuroki Kadoma, Osaka Matsuda Electric Industry Co., Ltd. 1006, Kadoma, Ichi, Japan (72) Inventor: Hiroyuki Senoo, 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. In-company (56) Reference JP-A-7-46710 (JP, A) JP-A-6-153320 (JP, A) Actually open 1-107625 (JP, U) Actually open 62-57810 (JP, U) ) Shokai Sho 62-145401 (JP, U) (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) A47L 11/00

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A traveling device for moving the main body by itself, a working device for performing work such as cleaning, a battery as a power source of the traveling device or the working device, an opening for taking out the battery from the main body, and the opening. And a mounting door for rotatably opening and closing with respect to the lower horizontal axis of the battery for mounting the battery, and a cover for rotatably opening and closing with respect to the lateral vertical axis of the opening to cover the outer surface of the above-mentioned mounting door. A mobile work robot that includes a door and a main body, and has a latch mechanism that holds the mounting door in the main body in a closed state, and when the latch mechanism is released, the mounting door and the cover door contact and interfere with each other. 2. The mobile work robot according to claim 1, further comprising switch means for cutting off the power supply of the traveling device when the cover door is opened.