KR101649645B1 - Robot cleaner and controlling method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

A robot cleaner and its control method are disclosed. In the present invention, a grid map is generated by searching a cleaning area having a plurality of rooms, a minutiae is extracted from the grid map to generate a room-divided phase map, and a room where a user performs cleaning and a room where cleaning is not performed The cleaning efficiency can be increased, the cleaning time can be reduced, and the user convenience can be improved.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention [0001] The present invention relates to a robot cleaner,

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a robot cleaner, and more particularly, to a robot cleaner capable of generating a room-level phase map by searching a cleaning area and a control method thereof.

In general, robots have been developed for industrial use and have been part of factory automation. In recent years, medical robots, aerospace robots, and the like have been developed, and household robots that can be used in ordinary homes are being developed.

A representative example of the domestic robot is a robot cleaner, which is a type of household appliance that sucks and cleanes dust or foreign matter around the robot while traveling in a certain area by itself. Such a robot cleaner is generally equipped with a rechargeable battery and has an obstacle sensor capable of avoiding obstacles during traveling, so that it can run and clean by itself.

In the early stage, the robot cleaner performed a random cleaning while traveling on its own, and there was a problem that an area which can not be cleaned due to an obstacle occurred. In order to compensate for this, recently, in order to clean all the areas while the robot cleaner is traveling by itself, the entire cleaning area is divided into a plurality of small areas (hereinafter, referred to as sectors) to perform cleaning or a cleaning map for a cleaning area A technique of cleaning a surface of a cleaning map by determining a cleaning area such as a cleaning area and an area to be cleaned has been developed and improved.

However, the robot cleaner according to the related art does not reflect the actual cleaning area as it is, and the cleaning efficiency is lowered by setting the sector as a virtual area, and the cleaning time is delayed. Further, in the conventional robot cleaner, since the rooms are not considered when cleaning a home, office, etc. having a plurality of rooms, the sectors are set in a plurality of rooms or cleaned at a time in a plurality of rooms There is a problem.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a robot cleaner capable of performing cleaning in units of rooms and a control method thereof.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a robot cleaner and a control method thereof, which detect a structure that distinguishes a room, such as a visit, recognize a location of a room, and perform cleaning in units of rooms.

The present invention relates to a robot cleaner for cleaning a region having a plurality of chambers and creating a phase map by dividing the chambers and cleaning the robot in units of rooms or sectors based on the phase map, There is another purpose in providing.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a robot cleaner including an obstacle detection unit for detecting an obstacle in a cleaning area having a plurality of chambers and outputting obstacle information, a feature point extracting unit for extracting a feature point from the obstacle information, And a control unit for generating the plurality of room-divided phase maps. The robot cleaner may further comprise a display unit for displaying the phase map.

In the robot cleaner according to the present invention, the control unit may include a feature point extracting module for extracting a plurality of feature points from the obstacle information, a sector setting module for dividing and setting the clean area into a plurality of sectors using the feature points, And a phase map generation module for generating the phase map using the plurality of sectors. Also, the control unit generates a grid map for the cleaning area using the obstacle information, and extracts the plurality of feature points from the grid map. In addition, the control unit calculates the sizes of the sectors, and merges the sectors based on the calculated sizes to generate the phase map.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of controlling a robot cleaner, including: detecting an obstacle in a cleaning area having a plurality of chambers; extracting a characteristic point from the obstacle; And generating a room-separated phase map.

The control method of the robot cleaner according to the present invention further includes the step of displaying the phase map. In addition, the control method may further include receiving a control command for clearing one or more of the plurality of displayed rooms.

The control method of the robot cleaner according to the present invention may further comprise generating a grid map for the cleaning area using the obstacle.

In the method of controlling a robot cleaner according to the present invention, the step of generating the phase map may include: setting the cleaning area into a plurality of sectors by using the minutiae points; And generating a map. The generating of the phase map may include calculating a size of the sectors, and merging the sectors based on the calculated size.

The robot cleaner and the control method thereof according to the present invention divide the chambers by cleaning the area having a plurality of chambers and perform cleaning in units of rooms, thereby increasing the cleaning efficiency and reducing the cleaning time.

The present invention can easily separate a room by dividing a room by using a structure such as a visit without installing an artificial indicator, reduce installation cost and manufacturing cost, and improve user convenience.

In cleaning a region having a plurality of chambers, a room is divided to form a phase map, and cleaning is performed in units of rooms or sectors on the basis of the phase map, thereby improving the scalability of the product, It is possible to easily distinguish between the room where the cleaning is performed and the room where the cleaning has not been performed, or to perform the cleaning selectively.

1 is a perspective view schematically showing the appearance of a robot cleaner according to the present invention;
FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 are block diagrams schematically showing a configuration of a robot cleaner according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG.
4 is a view for explaining a grid map generation operation after an obstacle is detected in the robot cleaner and the control method thereof according to the present invention;
5 is a view showing an example of a display unit in the robot cleaner according to the present invention;
6 and 7 are flowcharts schematically illustrating a method of controlling a robot cleaner according to embodiments of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Hereinafter, a robot cleaner and a control method thereof according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 and 2, a robot cleaner 1 according to the present invention includes an obstacle detection unit 100 for detecting an obstacle in a cleaning area having a plurality of chambers and outputting obstacle information, And a control unit (200) for generating the plurality of room-divided phase maps based on the minutiae points.

In the robot cleaner, the control unit 200 generates a grid map for the cleaning area using the obstacle information, and extracts the plurality of feature points from the grid map. Also, the control unit 200 calculates the sizes of the sectors, and merges the sectors based on the calculated sizes to generate the phase map.

The obstacle detection unit 100 detects obstacles in the vicinity of the robot cleaner while moving in the cleaning area or cleaning the robot cleaner, and displays obstacle information such as the presence, the position, and the size of the obstacle in the control unit 200 Output. As the obstacle detecting unit 100, an infrared sensor, an ultrasonic sensor, a RF sensor, a bumper, or the like can be used. Also, the obstacle detection unit 100 measures the distance from the wall surface, and detects the shape, position, and the like of the wall surface based on the distance. Here, as the sensor for detecting the wall, a PSD (Position Sensitive Device) sensor capable of accurately calculating the distance by using an ultrasonic sensor or an infrared triangulation method, or a laser which is reflected and reflected back after emitting the laser, And a laser range finder (LRF) for measuring the laser beam.

Referring to FIG. 3, the control unit 200 includes a feature point extraction module 210 for extracting a plurality of feature points from the obstacle information, a sector setting unit 220 for dividing the sector into a plurality of sectors using the feature points, A setting module 220 and a phase map generating module 230 for generating the phase map using the plurality of sectors.

Referring to FIG. 4, the robot cleaner searches for a cleaning area having a plurality of rooms to detect an obstacle, and detects structures such as a wall surface and a visit. The control unit 200 generates a grid map including the entire cleaning area, and displays the detected information on the grid map. As shown in FIG. 4, the grid map is divided into an area in which the robot cleaner can not move and a movable area due to an obstacle or the like. In addition, the control unit 200 performs a predetermined process on the grid map obtained after searching for the cleaning area so as to easily extract the feature points. That is, the robot cleaner removes the grating that is obstructed by the obstacle and can not move and the obstacle grating that is not connected to the inner space, and converts the grating map so that sampling for minutiae point extraction is possible along the obstacle grating. The feature point generally refers to a point having a large amount of change such as a corner feature or a visit. The generated grid map can be stored in a storage unit described later and can be displayed on the display unit 300.

The feature point extracting module 210 may extract feature points through various methods. For example, after the processing as shown in FIG. 4, the robot cleaner sequentially samples the obstacle lattice in contact with the movable region And extracts feature points by calculating the curvature with other obstacle grids. The point where the curvature change becomes minimum at the characteristic points becomes the corner.

The sector setting module 220 sets sectors based on the extracted information of the minutiae points, and more particularly, sets the sectors based on the distance between the extracted minutiae points. The sector setting module 220 identifies the plurality of rooms using the extracted minutiae. For example, the sector setting module 220 divides the extracted minutiae into a convex surface protruding into a movable region of the robot cleaner and a entering concave surface, calculates a distance between minutiae located on the convex surface, If it is smaller than the set distance, it is judged as a visit, and the plurality of rooms are distinguished by using the visit.

The phase map generation module 230 generates a phase map using the minutiae representing the set sectors. For example, the phase map generation module 230 may designate the set sectors as nodes, and create a phase map using the node and the edge as a visit to distinguish the room. At this time, the minutiae representing the node may be minutiae in the corner grid of the obstacle lattice including the node, or minutiae located at the center of the node. 5 is a diagram showing a phase map created by using a center point A indicating the node and a minutiae point B at the edge. The generated topological map can be stored in a storage unit described later, and can be displayed on the display unit 300. As shown in FIG. 5, a phase map can be created using a simple number of minutiae points, a plurality of rooms in the cleaning area can be displayed, and a user can select a room requiring cleaning among the displayed plurality of rooms Cleaning can be performed. Further, the robot cleaner can further accelerate the movement of the room by using the minutiae point B. In Fig. 5, C indicates an area in which the robot cleaner is movable, and D indicates an obstacle in which the robot cleaner can not move.

The control unit 200 calculates the width of each sector (or room) using the coordinate information of the minutiae points for each sector in the generated phase map, and merges the small-sized sectors with neighboring sectors. The phase map generation module 230 modifies the phase map using information on the merged sectors. In the case of the phase map represented by the node and the edge, the control unit 200 calculates the width of each room by using the coordinate information of the minutiae stored in each node, and merges the node indicating the small- do.

The robot cleaner may be configured to detect the obstacle detected by the obstacle detecting unit 100 or the information detected or recognized through the position recognition unit, which is stored in the storage unit 300, And a display unit 300 for displaying a grid map, a phase map, and the like created through the control unit 200. The display unit 300 may further display status information such as the current status of each unit constituting the robot cleaner and the current cleaning status. The display unit 300 may include any one of a light emitting diode (LED), a liquid crystal display (LCD), a plasma display panel, and an organic light emitting diode (OLED) And may be formed of one element.

Referring to FIG. 2, the robot cleaner according to the present invention includes a power unit 400 that includes a power supply unit that can be charged and supplies power to the robot cleaner, a drive unit 500 that drives the robot to move the robot cleaner, And an input unit 600 having one or more buttons for receiving control commands.

The power supply unit 400 supplies the operating power for moving the robot cleaner and performs cleaning, and supplies the charging power to the power supply unit, that is, the charging current is supplied from the charging stand when the remaining battery power is insufficient.

The drive unit 500 drives a predetermined wheel motor that rotates the plurality of wheels including a plurality of main wheels and at least one auxiliary wheel so that the robot cleaner moves.

A user or the like inputs control commands directly to the robot cleaner through the input unit 600 or inputs information such as obstacle information such as a moving direction, a moving path and an obstacle position stored in the storage unit 700, Information about the cleaning area, and commands for outputting the information detected by the obstacle detection unit 100 or the position recognition unit. The input unit 600 includes an input unit for inputting position information such as the position of the obstacle, the position of the robot cleaner, a cleaning area, an OK button for inputting a command for confirming a plurality of sectors, a grid map, A reset button for inputting a command for resetting, a delete button, a cleaning start button, and a stop button. In addition, a user or the like can perform cleaning by selecting a sector or a room requiring cleaning on the phase map displayed on the display unit 300 by inputting a control command through the input unit 600, , A cleaning order, and the like can be input. The input unit 600 and the display unit 300 may have the form of a touch screen capable of both input and output.

The robot cleaner further includes a storage unit (700). The robot cleaner is currently moving. Information on the obstacle such as the position of the obstacle detected through the obstacle detection unit 100 at the time of previous movement or during cleaning, the feature point extracted through the control unit 200, the generated grid map, And a storage unit 300 for storing the data. The storage unit 700 is preferably a non-volatile memory. Here, the non-volatile memory (NVM) is a storage device that keeps stored information even when power is not supplied. The storage device includes a ROM, a flash memory, a magnetic computer storage device A hard disk, a diskette drive, and a magnetic tape), an optical disk drive, and the like, and includes not only perforated cards and paper tapes, but also magnetic RAM, PRAM, and the like. In addition, the storage unit 700 may further store movement records, cleaning history, and the like of the robot cleaner in the cleaning area.

The robot cleaner may further include a position recognition unit 800 for recognizing the position of the robot cleaner and outputting position information. Here, the position recognition unit may include an acceleration sensor (not shown) for recognizing the speed and the position, an encoder (not shown) connected to a wheel motor for driving the wheels of the robot cleaner to detect the speed, One or more of a gyro sensor (not shown) may be used. In addition, the position recognition unit 800 may acquire peripheral image information using a forward camera or an upper camera, and may recognize the absolute position of the robot cleaner from the image information.

Further, the robot cleaner may further include a cleaning unit (not shown). The cleaning unit includes a predetermined suction motor for sucking air and a means for agglomerating the dust, do.

Referring to FIG. 6, a method for controlling a robot cleaner according to the present invention includes a step S100 of detecting an obstacle in a cleaning area having a plurality of chambers, a step S200 of extracting a feature point from the obstacle, And a step (S300) of generating a plurality of divided topological maps on the basis of the plurality of rooms. Further, the control method further includes displaying the phase map (S400). Reference is now made to Fig. 1 to Fig.

The robot cleaner detects an obstacle around the robot cleaner in the cleaning area (S100). In addition, the robot cleaner measures the distance from the wall surface, and detects the shape and position of the wall surface based on the distance (S100). Then, the robot cleaner can extract feature points through various methods. For example, after the preprocessing process, the robot cleaner performs sampling in order along the obstacle lattice in contact with the movable area, The feature points are extracted by calculating the curvature (S200). The point where the curvature change becomes minimum at the characteristic points becomes the corner. The robot cleaner generates a phase map using the extracted minutiae (S300).

Referring to FIG. 7, the step (S300) of generating the phase map includes a step S310 of setting the cleaning area into a plurality of sectors by using the minutiae points (S310) And generating a map (S320).

The robot cleaner sets sectors based on the distance between the extracted minutiae points (S310). The robot cleaner divides the plurality of rooms using the extracted minutiae. For example, the robot cleaner divides the extracted minutiae into a convex surface protruding into a movable area of the robot cleaner and a concave surface into which the robot cleaner is movable, If the distance is smaller than the preset distance, it is judged as a visit, and the plurality of rooms are distinguished by using the visit. The robot cleaner generates a phase map using minutiae representing the set sectors (S320). For example, the robot cleaner may designate the set sectors as nodes, and create a phase map by using the node and the edge as a visit to divide the room. At this time, the minutiae representing the node may be minutiae in the corner grid of the obstacle lattice including the node, or minutiae located at the center of the node. 5 is a diagram showing a phase map created by using a center point A indicating the node and a minutiae point B at the edge. As shown in Fig. 5, it is possible to create a phase map using a few simple minutiae points, and to display a plurality of rooms in the cleaning area. The control method further includes a step (S530) of receiving a control command for cleaning at least one of the plurality of displayed rooms, wherein the user or the like selects one of the displayed plurality of rooms for cleaning, . ≪ / RTI > Further, the robot cleaner can further accelerate the movement of the room by using the minutiae point B. Here, C denotes an area in which the robot cleaner can move, and D denotes an obstacle in which the robot cleaner can not move.

Referring to FIG. 7, the robot cleaner may further include a step (S10) of searching for a cleaning area to detect an obstacle and generating a grid map for the cleaning area using the obstacle information.

Referring to FIG. 4, the robot cleaner searches for a cleaning area having a plurality of rooms to detect an obstacle, and detects structures such as a wall surface and a visit. The robot cleaner generates a grid map including the entire cleaning area, and displays the detected information on the grid map. As shown in FIG. 4, the grid map is divided into an area in which the robot cleaner can not move and a movable area due to an obstacle or the like. In addition, the robot cleaner performs a predetermined process on the grid map obtained after searching for the cleaning area so as to easily extract feature points. That is, the robot cleaner removes the grating that is obstructed by the obstacle and can not move and the obstacle grating that is not connected to the inner space, and converts the grating map so that sampling for minutiae point extraction is possible along the obstacle grating. The feature point generally refers to a point having a large amount of change such as a corner or a visit of a room.

Referring to FIG. 7, the step of generating the phase map (S300) includes a step of calculating the sizes of the sectors (S330) and a step of merging the sectors based on the calculated sizes (S340) do. The robot cleaner calculates the width of each sector (or room) by using the coordinate information of the minutiae points for each sector in the generated phase map (S330), merges the small-sized sectors with surrounding sectors, The phase map is corrected (S340). In the case of the phase map represented by the node and the edge, the robot cleaner obtains the width of each room using the coordinate information of the minutiae points stored in each node, and merges the node representing the small room with the neighboring node.

As described above, the robot cleaner and its control method according to the present invention generate a grid map by searching a cleaning area having a plurality of rooms, extract feature points from the grid map, The user can easily distinguish between the room where the cleaning is performed and the room where the cleaning has not been carried out or the user can perform the cleaning selectively. Thus, the cleaning efficiency is increased, the cleaning time is reduced, and the user convenience is improved.

1: robot cleaner 100: obstacle detection unit
200: control unit 210: feature point extraction module
220: sector setting module 230: phase map generation module
300: display unit 400: power supply unit
500: drive unit 600: input unit
700: storage unit 800: position recognition unit

Claims (15)

An obstacle detection unit for detecting an obstacle in a cleaning area having a plurality of rooms and outputting obstacle information; And
And a control unit for extracting feature points from the obstacle information and generating the plurality of room-divided phase maps based on the feature points,
The control unit includes:
Generating a lattice map including a plurality of lattices classified according to the presence or absence of an obstacle based on the detected obstacle,
Deleting a grid corresponding to a predetermined condition among the plurality of grids, converting the generated grid map,
Extracting the feature points from the transformed grid map,
Wherein the lattice corresponding to the predetermined condition includes:
A lattice which is obstructed by obstacles among the grids determined to be free of obstacles and to which the robot cleaner can not move,
And a grating that is not in contact with the cleaning area among lattices determined to have an obstacle. The method according to claim 1,
And a display unit for displaying the phase map. 3. The apparatus according to claim 1 or 2,
A feature point extraction module for extracting a plurality of feature points from the obstacle information;
A sector setting module for dividing and setting the cleaning area into a plurality of sectors using the minutiae points; And
And a phase map generation module for generating the phase map using the plurality of sectors. 4. The apparatus according to claim 3,
Generating a grid map for the cleaning area using the obstacle information, and extracting the plurality of feature points from the grid map. 4. The apparatus according to claim 3,
Calculates the sizes of the sectors, and merges the sectors based on the calculated sizes to generate the phase map. A power supply unit including a rechargeable power supply unit for supplying power to the robot cleaner;
A drive unit for driving the robot to move the robot cleaner;
An input unit having one or more buttons to receive a control command;
An obstacle detection unit for detecting an obstacle in a cleaning area having a plurality of rooms and outputting obstacle information;
A control unit for extracting feature points from the obstacle information and generating the plurality of room-divided phase maps based on the feature points; And
And a display unit for displaying the phase map,
The control unit includes:
Generating a lattice map including a plurality of lattices classified according to the presence or absence of an obstacle based on the detected obstacle,
Deleting a grid corresponding to a predetermined condition among the plurality of grids, converting the generated grid map,
Extracting the feature points from the transformed grid map,
Wherein the lattice corresponding to the predetermined condition includes:
A lattice which is obstructed by obstacles among the grids determined to be free of obstacles and to which the robot cleaner can not move,
And a grating that is not in contact with the cleaning area among lattices determined to have an obstacle. 7. The control apparatus according to claim 6,
A feature point extraction module for extracting a plurality of feature points from the obstacle information;
A sector setting module for dividing and setting the cleaning area into a plurality of sectors using the minutiae points; And
And a phase map generation module for generating the phase map using the plurality of sectors. 8. The apparatus according to claim 7,
Generating a grid map for the cleaning area using the obstacle information, and extracting the plurality of feature points from the grid map. 8. The apparatus according to claim 7,
Calculates the sizes of the sectors, and merges the sectors based on the calculated sizes to generate the phase map. Detecting an obstacle in a cleaning area having a plurality of chambers;
Generating a lattice map including a plurality of lattices that are classified according to the presence or absence of an obstacle based on the detected obstacle;
Deleting a grid corresponding to a predetermined condition among the plurality of grids, and transforming the generated grid map;
Extracting feature points from the transformed grid map; And
And generating a plurality of phase-separated phase maps based on the feature points. 11. The method of claim 10,
And displaying the phase map. 12. The method of claim 11,
And receiving a control command to clean at least one of the displayed plurality of rooms. 13. The method according to any one of claims 10 to 12,
Dividing the cleaning area into a plurality of sectors using the feature points; And
And generating the phase map by using the plurality of sectors. 14. The method of claim 13, wherein generating the phase map comprises:
Calculating a size of the sectors; And
And merging the sectors based on the calculated size. 11. The method of claim 10,
Wherein the lattice corresponding to the predetermined condition includes:
A lattice which is obstructed by obstacles among the grids determined to be free of obstacles and to which the robot cleaner can not move,
And a grating that is not in contact with the cleaning area among grids determined to have an obstacle.

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