Robotic vacuum cleaners are the most used form of artificial intelligence. The development of robot vacuum cleaners has been very fast and efficient, which has gained the trust and interest of people. Data confirms that consumers are shifting in a great number from manual vacuum cleaners to robot vacuum cleaners. But the interesting thing is how does a robot vacuum cleaner work? It basically works on the same principle as in manual vacuum cleaners, but the difference comes on the point it does all that itself without any human labor.
Main components
It has two main components exactly the same as in manual vacuum cleaners.
- Motor – every robot vacuum cleaner has a motor to create suction. Suction powers pull the dust, dirt, long hairs, and every kind of debris from the surface. The strong is the suction power, the more efficiently it can pull the dirt and dust.
- Dust box – The debris that has been pulled by creating the suction power using a motor, now collected in the dust box.
These were the basic components that enable a robot vacuum to work according to the basic principle of vacuum cleaning. But what makes it autonomous. What turns a vacuum cleaner into a robot vacuum cleaner? These are Sensors. Artificial intelligence is based on sensors and so are the robot vacuum cleaners. Updated robot vacuum cleaners have a complete suite of sensors that is the thing that has developed robot vacuum cleaners up to this level. Earlier models lacked sensors or had poor sensors; this is why they could not work.
Robot Vacuum Cleaner Algorithm
Robotic vacuum cleaners mostly have four types of sensors.
Cliff sensors
These sensors enable robot vacuums to prevent falling from any height including stairs and door ledges. These sensors are present on the base of the robot vacuum. These sensors basically measure the distance of the robot vacuum from the surface. They do it by bouncing laser or infrared rays. By the distance, they get through bouncing the laser or infrared rays they maintain their height. As they reach a particular point where the distance increases, it shows there is a chance of falling down as they are on height, they change their direction.
Impact sensors or bump sensors
These sensors are not based on laser or infrared rays but these fall in the category of mechanical sensors. As they don’t detect before they touch. When a robot vacuum bumps into something, this bump triggers the mechanical sensors and the robot changes its direction.
Wall sensors
Wall sensors also use infrared rays or lasers to detect the wall, but these sensors are not present on the base. These are present on the sides of robot vacuums. Through their sensors, they detect a straight line that they interpret as a wall and move along it. These sensors prevent robot vacuums from frequently bumping into walls and also enhance the efficiency of cleaning, as using these sensors, the vacuum cleaner knows the boundary and knows where to work.
Optical encoders
These sensors were not present in old models but advanced updated models have these sensors. These are the most advanced sensors that have given robot vacuum cleaners this face, efficiency, popularity, and precision that they have today. This is necessary for a robot vacuum cleaner to know where it is and where it is supposed to go. These sensors enable a robot vacuum to know its location. These sensors are located on the wheels of robot vacuum cleaners. They count and measure the distance that has been covered and calculates where to go next. You may have heard that many advanced robot vacuum cleaners offer row by row cleaning, basically, the optical encoders empower the robot vacuum cleaner to do this row by row cleaning.
Sensors bounce Laser/infrared rays/ultrasonic waves to work
The most modern and most used are infrared rays that sensors in robot vacuum cleaners bounce to collect the data. Some models use lasers, and very few models use ultrasonic waves. Basically, when they bounce any of these three, they get back to them as a result of bounce. This whole process enables them to measure the difference either from the surface or from all four directions. The most advanced and precise are the sensors, the most efficient will be the robot vacuum cleaner.
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