Brushing – scrubbing – and general cleaning – Machines – With air blast or suction
Patent
1991-12-06
1994-08-30
Stinson, Frankie L.
Brushing, scrubbing, and general cleaning
Machines
With air blast or suction
15320, 180169, B62D 1104
Patent
active
053415400
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention has for its object a process and autonomous apparatus for automatic cleaning of ground areas through the performance of programmed tasks.
The technical sector of the invention is the manufacture of robots for cleaning ground areas, rolling and being positioned thereon to perform the cleaning operations in accordance with a determined task.
One of the principal applications of the invention is the automatic and autonomous sweeping, with slight suction, of ground areas in all premises recognized previously, whatever the obstacles which may be located in these premises and with a minimum of supervision and intervention by the operator.
In fact, various devices and processes for cleaning ground areas and walls in manual and automatic mode are known. In fact, with the development of techniques, on the one hand, and the wish to improve and to protect the environment, on the other hand, our Society is more and more demanding in matters of cleanliness; manual cleaning operations being degrading for the personnel and requiring much manpower, are being carried out more and more by tools mounted on machines or supports piloted by operators; for example, motor-cycles and automobiles for cleaning pavements and highways, telescopic elevators for cleaning facades, brush/vacuum cleaner carriages for cleaning ground areas, etc... have been developed. All these systems are generally autonomous and require the presence of at least a technician operator for piloting it in its environment, guiding it to the places where it must intervene, and for triggering off the cleaning tools proper.
For known premises or surfaces, certain manufactures even propose eliminating the operator on the apparatus itself, mounting thereon remote-control equipment controlled either remotely by an operator situated at a control station or by a pre-recorded program which causes it to perform repetitive tasks, always in the same manner.
Patent Application FR 8608026 filed on Jun. 4, 1986 by the firm HYPERROBOTICS INC. in the USA and entitled "robot for upkeep of buildings", may for example be mentioned, describing a structure for cleaning by surface spraying and scraping which moves by sliding from a garage station from which it is controlled by a linking cable.
Patent Application filed on Jan. 11, 1982 under No. FR 82 00275 by the firm "INTERNATIONAL ROBOTIC ENGINEERING" and entitled "robot with climbing attachments" is also known, comprising a frame which may abut on jacks provided with suction cups and moving by translation and rotation over all surfaces to be upkept. Others, each responding to a specific need of accessibility and/or of repetition of tasks, may be mentioned.
In the domain of cleaning ground areas, the problems of accessibility are less critical and automatization is still little developed: the operator remains necessary on the majority of present machines even if he has at his disposal an autonomous machine which comprises tools which do not manoeuvre directly and which he actuates by acting on control knobs; automatization is therefore partial as it is, in fact, difficult to render it total for ground areas of premises which may be temporarily occupied by unexpected obstacles, which do not comprise a mechanical permanent guiding system and of which the course is never the same when it is desired to use the same apparatus for several premises. Various prototype apparatus have been produced in an attempt to respond to these particularities, but, at the present time, none has succeeded.
The problem raised is therefore that of being able to displace and operate the ground cleaning tools without direct intervention of the operator in automatic mode and in autonomous manner in all premises, whatever the obstacles which may be encountered, without permanent mechanical installation or other guiding ones, and performing several different successive tasks.
One solution to the problem raised is a process for automatically cleaning ground areas with an autonomous apparatus of the type comprising known tools adapted to sa
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Poujon Joel O. P.
Soupert Jean-Louis D. C.
Onet, S.A.
Stinson Frankie L.
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