Robotic vacuum cleaner | EPFL Graph Search

A robotic vacuum cleaner, sometimes called a robovac or a roomba as a generic trademark, is an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner which has a limited vacuum floor cleaning system combined with sensors and robotic drives with programmable controllers and cleaning routines. Early designs included manual operation via remote control and a "self-drive" mode which allowed the machine to clean autonomously. Marketing materials for robotic vacuums frequently cite low noise, ease of use, and autonomous cleaning as main advantages. The perception that these devices are set-and-forget solutions is widespread but not always correct. Robotic vacuums are usually smaller than traditional upright vacuums, and weigh significantly less than even the lightest canister models. However, a downside to a robotic vacuum cleaner is that it takes an extended amount of time to vacuum an area due to its size. They are also relatively expensive, and replacement parts and batteries can contribute significantly

A Holistic Approach to Energy Harvesting for Indoor Robots

Florian Christopher Vaussard

Service robotics is a fast expanding market. Inside households, domestic robots can now accomplish numerous tasks, such as floor cleaning, surveillance, or remote presence. Their sales have considerably increased over the past years. Whereas 1.05 million domestic service robots were reportedly sold in 2009, at least 2.7 million units were sold in 2013. Consequently, this growth gives rise to an increase of the energy needs to power such a large and growing fleet of robots. However, the unique properties of mobile robots open some new fields of research. We must find technologies that are suitable for decreasing the energy requirements and thus further advance towards a sustainable development. This thesis tackles two fundamental goals based on a holistic approach of the global problem. The first goal is to reduce the energy needs by identifying key technologies in making energy-efficient robots. The second goal is to leverage innovative indoor energy sources to increase the ratio of renewable energies scavenged from the environment. To achieve our first goal, new energy-wise metrics are applied to real robotic hardware. This gives us the means to assess the impact of some technologies on the overall energy balance. First, we analysed seven robotic vacuum cleaners from a representative sample of the market that encompasses a wide variety of technologies. Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) was identified as a key technology to reduce energy needs when carrying out such tasks. Even if the instantaneous power is slightly increased, the completion time of the task is greatly reduced. We also analysed the needed sensors to achieve SLAM, as they are largely diversified. This work tested three sensors using three different technologies. We identified several important metrics. As of our second goal, potential energy sources are compared to the needs of an indoor robot. The sunshine coming through a building's apertures is identified as a promising source of renewable power. Numerical simulations showed how a mobile robot is mandatory to take full advantage of this previously unseen situation, as well as the influence of the geometric parameters on the yearly energy income under ideal sunny conditions. When considering a real system, the major difficulty to overcome is the tracking of the sunbeam along the day. The proposed algorithm uses a hybrid method. A high-level cognitive approach is responsible for the initial placement. Following realignments during the day are performed by a low-level reactive behaviour. A solar harvesting module was developed for our research robot. The tests conducted inside a controlled environment demonstrate the feasibility of this concept and the good performances of the aforementioned algorithm. Based on a realistic scenario and weather conditions, we computed that between 1 and 14 days of recharge could be necessary for a single cleaning task. In the future, our innovative technology could greatly lower the energy needs of service robots. However, it is not completely possible to abandon the recharge station due to occasional bad weather. The acceptance of this technology inside the user's home ecosystem remains to be studied.

EPFL2015

Will Your Household Adopt Your New Robot?

Julia Fink

Domestic robots have slowly found their way into some of our homes and onto the shelves of major stores selling technical appliances. Who hasn’t already seen or heard of robots that vacuum or mow the lawn? As researchers in robotics, we feel this growing commercial success is a great opportunity to learn about robot adoption processes. Leaving the marketing buzz and usual fantasies about robot invasions aside, we are curious to find out how robots are perceived by users. Are robots revolutionizing people’s practices at home? Understanding the adoption of such robots is also central, as it helps to pinpoint crucial factors to be taken into account while designing new robots. Other questions we wish to consider include: What convinces people to adopt them? What stops people from adopting them? What features or concepts should be transferred to future robot generations? To answer these questions, we conducted an ethnographic study that analyzed how people adopted or rejected a vacuum-cleaning robot in their homes [1]. We gave a popular commercially available robot (iRobot’s Roomba) to nine households and observed them over a period of six months [2]. We recruited households with and without children, pets, and gardens. We analyzed cleaning habits before Roomba. We then observed how they evolved from the moment we brought them the robot: at installa- tion, after two weeks, and then two and four months after installation.

2012

Tales from a Robotic World. How Intelligent Machines Will Shape Our Future

Dario Floreano, Nicola Nosengo

Stories from the future of intelligent machines—from rescue drones to robot spouses—and accounts of cutting-edge research that could make it all possible. Tech prognosticators promised us robots—autonomous humanoids that could carry out any number of tasks. Instead, we have robot vacuum cleaners. But, as Dario Floreano and Nicola Nosengo report, advances in robotics could bring those rosy predictions closer to reality. A new generation of robots, directly inspired by the intelligence and bodies of living organisms, will be able not only to process data but to interact physically with humans and the environment. In this book, Floreano, a roboticist, and Nosengo, a science writer, bring us tales from the future of intelligent machines—from rescue drones to robot spouses—along with accounts of the cutting-edge research that could make it all possible. These stories from the not-so-distant future show us robots that can be used for mitigating effects of climate change, providing healthcare, working with humans on the factory floor, and more. Floreano and Nosengo tell us how an application of swarm robotics could protect Venice from flooding, how drones could reduce traffic on the congested streets of mega-cities like Hong Kong, and how a “long-term relationship model” robot could supply sex, love, and companionship. After each fictional scenario, they explain the technologies that underlie it, describing advances in such areas as soft robotics, swarm robotics, aerial and mobile robotics, humanoid robots, wearable robots, and even biohybrid robots based on living cells. Robotics technology is no silver bullet for all the world's problems—but it can help us tackle some of the most pressing challenges we face.

MIT Press2022

A Holistic Approach to Energy Harvesting for Indoor Robots

Florian Christopher Vaussard

EPFL2015