US 12,436,538 B2
Method and system for environment maintenance
Chien-Tung Chen, Taipei (TW); Chung-Hou Wu, Taipei (TW); Chao-Cheng Chen, Taipei (TW); Wen-Wei Chiang, Taipei (TW); and Yi-Jin Lin, Taipei (TW)
Assigned to URSrobot AI Inc., Taipei (TW)
Filed by URSrobot AI Inc., Taipei (TW)
Filed on Apr. 28, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/309,614.
Claims priority of application No. 111116686 (TW), filed on May 3, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2023/0359219 A1, Nov. 9, 2023
Int. Cl. G05D 1/00 (2024.01)
CPC G05D 1/0274 (2013.01) [G05D 1/028 (2013.01); G05D 1/0291 (2013.01)] 10 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of using a robot system that includes a plurality of movable robots to perform environment maintenance, comprising steps of:
A) by at least one of the movable robots, tracing and recording boundaries of multiple to-be-maintained sites;
B) by the robot system, transmitting data of the boundaries to a server for storage therein;
C) by the server, computing a plurality of moving paths respectively for the to-be-maintained sites based on the data of the boundaries;
D) by the server, establishing a lookup table that records correspondences among the to-be-maintained sites, the boundaries and the moving paths;
E) by the server, receiving a setting signal that is generated and transmitted by a mobile device, the setting signal indicating a target site that is one of the to-be-maintained sites, and a selected robot that is one of the movable robots;
F) by the server based on the setting signal and the lookup table, generating a maintenance instruction that includes a target site boundary and a target moving path, wherein the target site boundary is one of the boundaries that corresponds to the target site, and the target moving path is one of the moving paths that corresponds to the target site; and
G) by the server, transmitting the maintenance instruction to the selected robot as indicated by the setting signal to make the selected robot perform maintenance on the target site;
wherein said method further comprises, after step G), steps of:
H) by the selected robot, maintaining the target site according to the maintenance instruction, and transmitting working status information that indicates a working status of the selected robot to the server for storage therein; and
I) by the server, providing the working status information to the mobile device for display thereby;
wherein each of the movable robots includes a positioning module, a navigation module and a status reporting module, and each of the boundaries thus recorded includes multiple boundary coordinate sets; and
wherein step H) includes sub-steps of:
H1) by the navigation module of the selected robot, receiving the maintenance instruction that includes the target site boundary and the target moving path;
H2) by the positioning module of the selected robot, acquiring and transmitting a current coordinate set that represents a current location of the selected robot to the navigation module;
H3) by the navigation module of the selected robot, determining, based on a first coordinate set and the boundary coordinate sets of the target site boundary, whether the selected robot is outside of the target site boundary, wherein the first coordinate set is acquired by and received from the positioning module of the selected robot, and represents a location of the selected robot at a time the navigation module of the selected robot received the maintenance instruction; and
H4) by the navigation module of the selected robot, upon determining that the selected robot is outside of the target site boundary, causing the status reporting module of the selected robot to generate and transmit the working status information that includes a first working status to the server for storage therein, wherein the first working status indicates that the selected robot is outside of the target site boundary.