6626 results about "Mobile robot" patented technology

A mobile robot guest for interacting with a human resident performs a room-traversing search procedure prior to interacting with the resident, and may verbally query whether the resident being sought is present. Upon finding the resident, the mobile robot may facilitate a teleconferencing session with a remote third party, or interact with the resident in a number of ways. For example, the robot may carry on a dialogue with the resident, reinforce compliance with medication or other schedules, etc. In addition, the robot incorporates safety features for preventing collisions with the resident; and the robot may audibly announce and/or visibly indicate its presence in order to avoid becoming a dangerous obstacle. Furthermore, the mobile robot behaves in accordance with an integral privacy policy, such that any sensor recording or transmission must be approved by the resident.

A mobile robot includes a processor connected to a memory and a wireless network circuit, for executing routines stored in the memory and commands generated by the routines and received via the wireless network circuit. The processor drives the mobile robot to a multiplicity of accessible two dimensional locations within a household, and commands an end effector, including at least one motorized actuator, to perform mechanical work in the household. A plurality of routines include a first routine which monitors a wireless local network and detects a presence of a network entity on the wireless local network, a second routine which receives a signal from a sensor detecting an action state of one of the network entities, the action state changeable between waiting and active, and a third routine which commands the end effector to change state of performing mechanical work based on the presence and on the action state.

An order-picking method includes autonomously routing a plurality of mobile robotic units in an order fulfillment facility and picking articles to or putting articles from the robotic units in the order fulfillment facility. A material-handling robotic unit that is adapted for use in an order fulfillment facility includes an autonomous mobile vehicle base and a plurality of article receptacles positioned on the base. A visual indicator associated with the receptacle facilitates picking articles to or putting articles from the robotic unit.

A robot obstacle detection system including a robot housing which navigates with respect to a surface and a sensor subsystem aimed at the surface for detecting the surface. The sensor subsystem includes an emitter which emits a signal having a field of emission and a photon detector having a field of view which intersects the field of emission at a region. The subsystem detects the presence of an object proximate the mobile robot and determines a value of a signal corresponding to the object. It compares the value to a predetermined value, moves the mobile robot in response to the comparison, and updates the predetermined value upon the occurrence of an event.

The Job Management System (JMS) of the present invention processes job requests in an automated physical environment, such as a factory, hospital, order processing facility or office building, wherein the job requests are handled by a fleet of autonomously-navigating mobile robots. The JMS includes a map defining a floor plan, a set of virtual job locations and a set of one or more virtual job operations associated with virtual job locations. The JMS automatically determines the actual locations and actual job operations for the job requests, and intelligently selects a suitable mobile robot to handle each job request based on the current status and/or the current configuration for the selected mobile robot. The JMS also sends commands to the selected mobile robot to cause the mobile robot to automatically drive the actual job location, to automatically perform the actual job operations, or both.

Embodiments of the invention are directed to a system for recharging a mobile robot as a power source. In one embodiment the system comprises a power transmission link having a first end positioned at a selectively located charging station and a second end connected to the battery carried by the robot, the transmission link being configured to transmit power from its first end to its second end to charge the battery. The system further comprises a first wireless power transmitter coupled to receive power from a specified power source, and a first wireless power receiver, connected to the first end of the transmission link and located at a prespecified distance from the first wireless power transmitter. The first wireless power receiver is configured to receive power transmitted across the prespecified distance from the first wireless power transmitter, and to provide power to the first end of the transmission link, for transmission to charge the battery.

An autonomous mobile robot cleaner that can thoroughly clean an area of high dust concentration. The robot cleaner includes a dust sensor to detect collected dust and a dust concentration decision means to decide degree of dust concentration in the area in which the main body of the robot cleaner moves based on an output of the dust sensor. The robot cleaner performs a basic cleaning operation while moving according to a predetermined movement procedure. When it finds an area in which the degree of dust concentration is above a given value using the dust concentration decision means during the basic cleaning operation, it additionally performs a local cleaning operation to move locally in such area after its movement in accordance with the basic cleaning operation.

Agricultural operations by applying flexible manufacturing software, robotics and sensing techniques to agriculture. In manufacturing operations utilizing flexible machining and flexible assembly robots, work pieces flow through a fixed set of workstations on an assembly line. At different stations are located machine vision systems, laser based raster devices, radar, touch, photocell, and other methods of sensing; flexible robot armatures and the like are used to operate on them. This flexible agricultural automation turns that concept inside out, moving software programmable workstations through farm fields on mobile robots that can sense their environment and respond to it flexibly. The agricultural automation will make it possible for large scale farming to take up labor intensive farming practices which are currently only practical for small scale farming, improving land utilization efficiency, while lowering manpower costs dramatically.

An intelligent modular hybrid robot arm system is usable with mobile robots, and is applicable to stationary industrial arms. The intelligent modular hybrid robot arm system provides a large work envelope and a controlled and directed rotational movement for a flexible snake robot arm. The intelligent modular hybrid robot arm system has the ability to change end effector tools and sensors. The platform computers have the ability to interact with other subsystems for coordinated as well as independent tasks. The flexibly snake robot arm can be covered with a flexible sensor network, or “skin”. The intelligent modular hybrid robot arm system can manage its energy use, stores the arm in a compact shape and uses a central support tube offering unobstructed arm access to all sectors of its working envelope.

A self-propelled robot is disclosed for movement over a surface to be treated. The robot has a power supply and a pair of wheels driven by motors for moving the robot over the surface. A mechanism is provided for controllably depositing a fluent material on to the surface. Navigation sensors provide signals for enabling the robot to navigate over the surface and one or more detectors detect the presence of the material on the surface and provide signals indicative of its presence. A control system receives the signals from the sensors and detectors and controls the motors and the depositing mechanism in dependence upon the signals received from the sensors and detectors.

A computer-implemented method for receiving user commands for a remote cleaning robot and sending the user commands to the remote cleaning robot, the remote cleaning robot including a drive motor and a cleaning motor, includes displaying a user interface including a control area, and within the control area: a user-manipulable launch control group including a plurality of control elements, the launch control group having a deferred launch control state and an immediate launch control state; at least one user-manipulable cleaning strategy control element having a primary cleaning strategy control state and an alternative cleaning strategy control state; and a physical recall control group including a plurality of control elements, the physical recall control group having an immediate recall control state and a remote audible locator control state. The method further includes: receiving user input via the user-manipulable control elements; responsive to the user inputs, displaying simultaneously within the same control area a real-time robot state reflecting a unique combination of control states; and commanding the remote cleaning robot to actuate the drive motor and cleaning motor to clean a surface based on the received input and unique combination of control states.

Systems and methods are provided that use a mobile robotic device (120, 220, 800) to transport rechargeable batteries (322, 422, 530, 570, 610, 722) between a base station (110, 600, 700), which charges the batteries, and a battery operated device (130, 230, 300, 400, 500, 550), such as battery powered kiosk (400) or signage system (300), which uses a charged battery as a power source. After traveling to a battery operated device, the mobile robotic device removes any discharged batteries from the battery operated device and installs a charged battery. The mobile robotic device then travels to the base station and attaches the discharged battery to the base station for recharging. The mobile robotic device may be configured to perform other transfers, such as data transfers and paper transfers. In addition, the mobile robotic device may be configured to perform a photographic and spatial survey of the isles, retail shelves, and surrounding environment for various purposes, such as generating three-dimensional store models and remote viewing.

Disclosed are an automatic charging apparatus of an autonomous mobile robot and an automatic charging method using the same in that a moving robot can automatically detect infrared signals emitted from a charging station and can automatically induce charging station so as to automatically charge a battery of the robot, whereby improving convenience thereof. The automatic charging apparatus of the autonomous mobile robot, comprises a charging station having connecting terminals for charging the battery and an infrared signal generator for emitting infrared signals on a position information thereof; and a moving robot having an infrared receiving apparatus for receiving the infrared signals from the infrared signal generator in a cast that a remnant capacity of the battery is insufficient or a charging order is inputted, a microcomputer for controlling a traveling of the moving robot by using a detected position information of the charging station through the infrared signals received from the infrared receiving apparatus, and charging terminals for charging the battery with electricity through the contact with the connecting terminal.

A robotic system that includes a remote controlled robot with at least five degrees of freedom and a teleconferencing function. The robot may include a camera, a monitor and a holonomic platform all attached to a robot housing. The robot may be controlled by a remote control station that also has a camera and a monitor. The remote control station may be linked to a base station that is wirelessly coupled to the robot. The cameras and monitors allow a care giver at the remote location to monitor and care for a patient through the robot. The holonomic platform provides three degrees of freedom to allow the robot to move about a home or facility to locate and/or follow a patient. The robot also has mechanisms to provide at least two degrees of freedom for the camera.

A remote controlled robot system that includes a mobile robot with a robot camera and a battery plug module, and a remote control station that transmits commands to control the mobile robot. The system also includes a battery charging module that mates with the mobile robot battery plug module, and an alignment system that aligns the battery plug module with the battery charging module. The battery modules may also be aligned with the aid of video images of the battery charging module provided to the remote station by a camera located within the battery plug module.

A system and method for identifying objects existing in a space. The system includes a mobile robot obtaining object identification information of each object in the space and transmitting the object identification information, and a remote control unit receiving the object identification information, identifying each object based on the object identification information, and allocating an identifier to each identified object.

A behavior controlling apparatus by which the mobility area of a robot apparatus may be controlled in a simplified manner using plural landmarks. A landmark recognition unit 410 uniquely recognizes the landmarks to acquire the landmark position information rPo(x,y,z). A landmark map building unit 420 integrates the totality of the landmark position information rPo(x,y,z) sent by the landmark recognition unit 410 to build a landmark map which has integrated the geometric topology of the landmarks. Using the landmark map information rPoxN, a mobility area recognition unit 430 builds a mobility area map representing a mobility area for the robot. Using the mobility area map, sent from the mobility area recognition unit 430, a behavior controller 440 controls the autonomous behavior of the robot apparatus 1 so that the robot apparatus 1 will not come out of or into the mobility area.

A mobile robot includes a microprocessor connected to a memory and a wireless network circuit, for executing routines stored in the memory and commands generated by the routines and received via the wireless network circuit. The microprocessor drives the mobile robot to a multiplicity of accessible two dimensional locations within a household, and commands an end effector, including at least one motorized actuator, to perform mechanical work in the household. A plurality of routines include a first routine which monitors a wireless local network and detects a presence of a network entity on the wireless local network, a second routine which receives a signal from a sensor detecting an action state of one of the network entities, the action state changeable between waiting and active, and a third routine which commands the end effector to change state of performing mechanical work based on the presence and on the action state.

A mobile robot includes a radio communication unit; a radio environment detector detecting plural types of radio environment data indicating the degree of goodness of radio environment, a comprehensive radio environment data being calculated from results of weighting the plural types of radio environment data with predetermined weights; a self-position detecting unit; a storage for map data of a movement area; the calculated comprehensive radio environment data being written in association with its own position detected. The robot moves at a movement speed not higher than the maximum movement speed determined so that communication with the radio base station is not cut off during movement and, if radio communication is cut off, searches the radio environment map for a communication restoration position where the radio communication is feasible to establish and moves to the communication restoration position and has the radio intensity reporting control section reporting the determined level of radio intensity.

In exemplary embodiments, a robot cleaner with improved safety features comprises a driving part for movably supporting a cleaner body and supplying a driving force for operating the cleaner body; a suction part mounted on the cleaner body to draw in dust from a surface being cleaned; a body sensor mounted on the cleaner body to perceive any approach or contact of at least a part of human body or pet; and a control part for turning on and off the driving part according to a signal detected by the body sensor.