CN109965781B - Control method, device and system for collaborative work of sweeping robot - Google Patents
Control method, device and system for collaborative work of sweeping robot Download PDFInfo
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- CN109965781B CN109965781B CN201711464612.6A CN201711464612A CN109965781B CN 109965781 B CN109965781 B CN 109965781B CN 201711464612 A CN201711464612 A CN 201711464612A CN 109965781 B CN109965781 B CN 109965781B
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- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A47—FURNITURE; DOMESTIC ARTICLES OR APPLIANCES; COFFEE MILLS; SPICE MILLS; SUCTION CLEANERS IN GENERAL
- A47L—DOMESTIC WASHING OR CLEANING; SUCTION CLEANERS IN GENERAL
- A47L11/00—Machines for cleaning floors, carpets, furniture, walls, or wall coverings
- A47L11/24—Floor-sweeping machines, motor-driven
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- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A47—FURNITURE; DOMESTIC ARTICLES OR APPLIANCES; COFFEE MILLS; SPICE MILLS; SUCTION CLEANERS IN GENERAL
- A47L—DOMESTIC WASHING OR CLEANING; SUCTION CLEANERS IN GENERAL
- A47L11/00—Machines for cleaning floors, carpets, furniture, walls, or wall coverings
- A47L11/40—Parts or details of machines not provided for in groups A47L11/02 - A47L11/38, or not restricted to one of these groups, e.g. handles, arrangements of switches, skirts, buffers, levers
- A47L11/4011—Regulation of the cleaning machine by electric means; Control systems and remote control systems therefor
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
- H04L67/01—Protocols
- H04L67/10—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network
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- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A47—FURNITURE; DOMESTIC ARTICLES OR APPLIANCES; COFFEE MILLS; SPICE MILLS; SUCTION CLEANERS IN GENERAL
- A47L—DOMESTIC WASHING OR CLEANING; SUCTION CLEANERS IN GENERAL
- A47L2201/00—Robotic cleaning machines, i.e. with automatic control of the travelling movement or the cleaning operation
- A47L2201/04—Automatic control of the travelling movement; Automatic obstacle detection
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Abstract
The invention provides a control method for cooperative work of sweeping robots, which is based on a central server to control a plurality of sweeping robots to cooperate work, and comprises the following steps: a. acquiring sub-map information generated by each sweeping robot; b. generating overlapping map information based on the intersection of the sub-map information to determine a corresponding overlapping area, and sending the overlapping map information to the corresponding sweeping robot; c. and controlling the sweeping robot to cooperatively execute sweeping work based on the overlapped map information. The invention can be applied to the cooperative cleaning of a plurality of sweeping robots in a large-scale venue, and has high reliability and fault tolerance. The economical efficiency, the practicability and the intellectualization of the sweeping robot are greatly improved.
Description
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the technical field of robots, and particularly relates to a control method, a control device and a control system for cooperative work of multiple sweeping robots.
Background
Along with the gradual walking into families, offices and even other public environments, the intelligent requirements on the sweeping robot under different application scenes are gradually improved. Generally, the sweeping robot is placed in a specific area to independently work, and does not need to be matched with other sweeping robots. In the prior art, when a single sweeping robot works, a VSLAM technology is adopted to complete map construction and subsequent sweeping work, and although the VSLAM technology has high positioning and composition accuracy, for sweeping of a large-scale scene, the work efficiency of the single sweeping robot is too low, if multiple sweeping robots work independently without cooperation, repeated sweeping is caused, and map data of each sweeping robot cannot be shared, so that repeated map construction and repeated calculation are caused, and the work efficiency of the sweeping robot is influenced. In addition, the existing SLAM technology needs a large amount of computing resources when performing closed-loop detection and position optimization, and has very large requirements on a CPU, a memory and electric energy. Therefore, the hardware cost of the traditional sweeping robot is high.
Therefore, there is a need for a control method and apparatus suitable for multiple sweeping robots to work together in the same working area.
Disclosure of Invention
Aiming at the technical defects in the prior art, the invention aims to provide a control method for cooperative work of sweeping robots, which is based on a central server to control a plurality of sweeping robots to cooperate, and comprises the following steps:
a. acquiring sub-map information generated by each sweeping robot;
b. generating overlapping map information based on the intersection of the sub-map information to determine a corresponding overlapping area, and sending the overlapping map information to the corresponding sweeping robot;
c. and controlling the sweeping robot to cooperatively execute sweeping work based on the overlapped map information.
Preferably, step a1. is further included before step a, a communication connection between a plurality of sweeping robots and the central server is established, the central server controls the plurality of sweeping robots to perform data calculation in parallel, and the plurality of sweeping robots are only used for executing a control instruction sent by the central server.
Preferably, each of the sweeping robots in the step a generates the sub-map information by:
a2. judging whether the sweeping robot is communicated with the central server for the first time, if so, executing the step a3, and if not, executing the step a 4;
a3. the central server controls the sweeping robot to generate the sub-map information and performs closed-loop detection on the sub-map information;
a4. the central server calls historical sub-map information corresponding to the sweeping robot, controls the sweeping robot to generate the sub-map information based on the historical sub-map information, and performs closed-loop detection on the sub-map information.
Preferably, the step a4 is further followed by the following steps:
a5. and generating a non-overlapping area based on the historical sub-map information and the sub-map information, and controlling the sweeping robot closest to the non-overlapping area to perform the sweeping work in the non-overlapping area.
Preferably, the step b further comprises the steps of:
b1. carrying out edge detection on the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot;
b2. determining an intersection of the plurality of sub-map information with each other based on the edge detection.
Preferably, the step c further comprises a step c1 of controlling the sweeping robot closest to the overlapped area to perform the sweeping work.
Preferably, the step b further comprises the steps of:
generating global map information based on the union of the sub-map information;
accordingly, the step c1 includes the following steps:
c11. acquiring positioning information of each sweeping robot based on the global map information;
c12. determining a sweeping robot closest to the overlapping area based on the positioning information;
c13. and sending a control instruction for generating a map and executing cleaning work to the robot sweeper closest to the overlapped area.
Preferably, the sweeping robot closest to the overlapping area is determined by:
extracting positioning information of the feature points in the overlapping area in the global map information;
and determining the sweeping robot closest to the feature points according to the positioning information of the feature points and the positioning information of the sweeping robots.
Preferably, each sweeping robot generates the sub-map information and/or performs closed-loop detection through a visual SLAM algorithm.
Preferably, the step c further comprises the following steps:
d. the central server stores the sub-map information, the overlap area map information, and the global map information as historical sub-map information, historical overlap area map information, and historical global map information.
The invention also provides a control device for the cooperative work of the sweeping robot, which comprises:
a sub-map information acquisition unit, configured to acquire sub-map information generated by each of the sweeping robots;
an overlap map information generating unit for generating overlap map information to determine a corresponding overlap area based on an intersection of the sub-map information with each other;
the cooperative control unit is used for controlling the sweeping robot to cooperatively execute sweeping work based on the overlapped map information; and
and the communication unit is used for the communication and information transmission between the central server and the plurality of sweeping robots.
Preferably, the cooperative control unit includes:
the edge detection module is used for carrying out edge detection on the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot;
a first determination module to determine an intersection of the plurality of sub-map information with each other based on the edge detection.
Preferably, the map information generating device further comprises a global map information generating unit for generating global map information based on the union of the sub-map information; accordingly, the number of the first and second electrodes,
the cooperative control unit further comprises a first positioning module, which is used for acquiring the positioning information of each sweeping robot based on the global map information;
a second determination module for determining a sweeping robot closest to the overlapping area based on the positioning information; and
and the instruction sending module is used for sending a control instruction for generating a map and executing cleaning work to the robot sweeper closest to the overlapped area.
Preferably, the second determining module includes:
the extraction module is used for extracting positioning information of the feature points in the overlapping area in the global map information;
and the third determining module is used for determining the sweeping robot closest to the feature points according to the positioning information of the feature points and the positioning information of the sweeping robots.
Preferably, a storage unit for storing the sub map information, the overlap area map information, and the global map information as history sub map information, history overlap area map information, and history global map information is further included.
The invention also relates to a control system for the cooperative work of the sweeping robots, which is controlled by the control device of the invention and comprises a central server and a plurality of sweeping robots,
the sweeping robots are respectively connected with and communicate with the central server, and the central server controls the sweeping robots to cooperatively perform sweeping work.
Preferably, the maximum map areas covered by the plurality of sweeping robots are the same or different according to the configuration of the sweeping robots.
The invention can adopt a central architecture according to the number and the self configuration of the sweeping robots, the central server is responsible for map construction and path planning, and the sweeping robots are only responsible for sweeping and data acquisition. The data sharing and the cooperative work among a plurality of sweeping robots are realized.
The floor sweeping robot has the advantages of powerful functions, strong practicability, capability of saving hardware cost and improving the cooperative working capability of the floor sweeping robot, and high reliability, fault tolerance and intelligence.
Drawings
Other features, objects and advantages of the invention will become more apparent upon reading of the detailed description of non-limiting embodiments with reference to the following drawings:
fig. 1 is a schematic flow chart of a control method for a collaborative work of a sweeping robot according to an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 2 is a schematic flowchart illustrating a specific process of acquiring sub-map information generated by each sweeping robot according to an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 3 is a schematic flowchart illustrating a specific process of determining an intersection between sub-map information according to an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 4 is a schematic flow chart of another control method for the cooperative operation of the sweeping robot according to the embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 5 is a schematic block diagram of a control device for a sweeping robot working in cooperation according to an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 6 shows a schematic block diagram of a cooperative control unit according to an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 7 is a schematic block diagram of another control device for a sweeping robot working in cooperation according to an embodiment of the present invention; and
fig. 8 shows a schematic topology of a control system of a sweeping robot working cooperatively according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Detailed Description
In order to better and clearly show the technical scheme of the invention, the invention is further described with reference to the attached drawings.
The technical personnel in the field understand that the invention can be applied to the environment of a large-scale venue and the like, a plurality of sweeping robots are utilized, the data sharing is realized through the communication with the central server on the basis that a single sweeping robot constructs a map through a central server type framework, and the global map is constructed through the central server, so that the sweeping robots work in parallel to complete the sweeping task more efficiently.
Fig. 1 shows a schematic flow chart of a control method for a sweeping robot to work cooperatively according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the invention, the central server communicates with a plurality of sweeping robots to realize data transmission and control instruction sending and execution. The person skilled in the art understands that each sweeping robot is an individual working independently, and if there is no central server or communication fails, each sweeping robot can still work normally, and the whole work flow is consistent with that of the existing sweeping robot.
Firstly, step S101 is executed to obtain sub-map information generated by each of the sweeping robots. Specifically, the sweeping robot can sense the working environment information through any combination of various sensors such as a built-in camera, a laser ranging sensor, an infrared sensor, an ultrasonic sensor and a visual sensor which are configured by the sweeping robot, and can perform all-dimensional scanning on the working environment by combining with an SLAM algorithm, so that the sub-map information is constructed. The sub-map information is map information generated by each sweeping robot through sensing and detecting the environment in the working area of the sweeping robot. Further, the sub-map information generated by each sweeping robot is related to the sweeping capacity of the sweeping robot. And setting the sweeping capacity as the maximum sweeping area which can be reached by the sweeping robot according to self configuration. The size of the sub-map information is positively correlated with the sweeping capacity of the sweeping robot. Those skilled in the art understand that each sweeping robot as an individual working independently can perform path planning according to path planning methods such as a manual view field method, a raster method, a visual graph method and the like. The device can still work normally and independently under the condition of no or no need of cooperative work. It should be noted that slam (simultaneous localization and mapping) is an instant positioning and mapping method, and is used to solve the problem that the robot moves from an unknown position in an unknown environment, perform self-positioning according to position estimation and a map in the moving process, and build an incremental map on the basis of self-positioning to realize autonomous positioning and navigation of the robot. More specifically, it will be described in the following embodiments, which will not be described herein. In this step, the sweeping robots are connected and communicate with a central server to realize data transmission, and the sweeping robots upload the sub-map information generated by the sweeping robots to the central server, so that the central server acquires the sub-map information generated by each sweeping robot.
Subsequently, in step S102, overlap map information is generated based on an intersection of the sub-map information with each other to determine a corresponding overlap area, and the overlap map information is transmitted to the corresponding sweeping robot. Specifically, after receiving the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot, the central server detects and processes different sub-map information, so as to determine a position relationship between the plurality of sub-map information, that is, determine whether an intersection exists between the plurality of sub-map information, and if so, indicate that an overlapping area exists in a working area of the plurality of sweeping robots. Further, the central server processes the sub-map information with intersection in pairs to obtain overlapping map information, where the overlapping map information may be map information obtained by combining two corresponding sub-map information with intersection, or information of an intersection part of two corresponding sub-map information with intersection. As understood by those skilled in the art, each item of acquired overlapping map information corresponds to two or more sub-map information with intersection and two or more sweeping robots corresponding to the two or more sub-map information. And after the central server generates the overlapped map information, the overlapped map information is sent to the corresponding sweeping robot. Therefore, the sweeping robots share the map information data which are respectively constructed, so as to be used for the decision and execution of the subsequent cleaning operation.
Further, in step S103, the sweeping robot is controlled to cooperatively perform a sweeping operation based on the overlay map information. Specifically, the central server commands and controls the sweeping robots, each sweeping robot carries out indirect communication with the central server as a bridge according to the overlapping map information and other sweeping robots corresponding to the overlapping map information, and the central server divides and plans the sweeping areas of the sweeping robots with overlapping areas, so that the sweeping robots are prevented from repeatedly sweeping the common overlapping areas. More specifically, the detailed description will be made in the embodiments described later, and the detailed description will not be repeated herein.
In summary, the central server cooperatively controls a plurality of sweeping robots in the same sweeping area to share map data with each other, so as to adjust path planning and divide respective sweeping areas, thereby performing sweeping tasks more efficiently.
As a sub-embodiment of the embodiment shown in fig. 1, fig. 2 is a schematic specific flow chart of acquiring sub-map information generated by each sweeping robot according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 2, before step S101 shown in fig. 1, step S1011 is executed to establish communication connections between the central server and the plurality of sweeping robots. Specifically, the number of the plurality of sweeping robots can be reasonably planned and arranged according to the area size of the working environment and the size, distribution and number of ground obstacles. Each sweeping robot can be a sweeping robot with the same model and the same specification, and can also be a sweeping robot with different types, which does not influence the essence of the invention. Furthermore, the communication mode between the central server and the plurality of sweeping robots can be realized by selecting different types of communication interfaces according to requirements. Specifically, the network communication protocol may be implemented by TCP, UDP, ARP, ICMP, HTTP, DNS, DHCP, and the like, which is not described herein again. Furthermore, before the central server is in communication connection with the plurality of sweeping robots, the sweeping robots actively detect whether the central server works normally, and if so, the communication connection between the central server and the sweeping robots is established. Therefore, a framework that a plurality of sweeping robots under a central server communicate with each other is constructed. It should be noted that, in the system where the central server communicates with the plurality of sweeping robots, the central server serves as a central control center and is responsible for controlling the plurality of sweeping robots to perform data calculation in parallel. That is, the central server sends control instructions and/or data to each sweeping robot independently and concurrently without affecting each other. Furthermore, the plurality of sweeping robots are only used for executing the control instruction sent by the central server, that is, after the plurality of sweeping robots are connected to enter the communication control system, the plurality of sweeping robots receive/control of the central server, receive data and/or control instruction from the central server and execute the data and/or control instruction.
Those skilled in the art understand that after the sweeping robot establishes a communication connection with the central server, a plurality of sweeping robots can share data and work cooperatively. The manner in which each of the sweeping robots generates the corresponding word map information will be described in detail below.
In step S1012, it is determined whether the sweeping robot communicates with the central server for the first time, if the sweeping robot communicates with the central server for the first time, step S1013 is performed, and if the sweeping robot does not communicate with the central server for the first time, step S1014 is performed. It should be noted that, when the determination result in the step S1012 is yes, it indicates that the sweeping robot has not established communication with the central server before, and has not participated in the cooperative operation of the present invention, and the central server does not have any sub-map information and other information stored by the sweeping robot. On the contrary, if the determination result in the step S1012 is negative, it indicates that the sweeping robot has established communication with the central server before and has participated in the cooperative operation of the present invention, and the central server stores the history sub-map information and other information of the sweeping robot. The robot sweeping machine can be generally used for a plurality of robots respectively responsible for collaborative sweeping operation of a fixed area, and through the arrangement, the number of the robots can be reduced, the robots can perform detection and calculation again, and the composition efficiency is greatly improved.
Further, in step S1013, the central server controls the sweeping robot to generate the sub-map information, and performs closed-loop detection on the sub-map information. Those skilled in the art understand that in the VSLAM algorithm, closed-loop detection refers to the ability of the robot to recognize historical arrival scenarios, and if the detection is successful, the cumulative error can be significantly reduced, which is essentially an algorithm to detect the similarity of the observed data. Specifically, the sweeping robot may collect images at regular intervals or at a certain travel distance, extract features from the collected image data, and store the extracted image features and the corresponding time thereof, thereby gradually establishing a database. And matching the image in the advancing process with the historically acquired image through a certain rule by closed-loop detection, and taking a matching result as a basis for judging whether the current position is visited or not. The above steps S1012 and S1013 together describe a specific manner for each sweeping robot to generate the sub-map information thereof. And each sweeping robot uploads the sub-map information generated by the sweeping robot respectively and sends the sub-map information to the central server.
In step S1014, the central server retrieves historical sub-map information corresponding to the sweeping robot, controls the sweeping robot to generate the sub-map information based on the historical sub-map information, and performs closed-loop detection on the sub-map information. The step S1013 may be referred to for performing the closed-loop detection process on the sub-map information in the central server, which is not described herein again.
With continued reference to fig. 2, after the step S1014, a step S1015 is further included, which generates a non-overlapping area based on the historical sub-map information and the sub-map information, and controls the sweeping robot closest to the non-overlapping area to perform the cleaning work in the non-overlapping area. Those skilled in the art understand that since the detection results of each sweeping robot are not completely consistent under different conditions, the detection conditions of each sweeping robot are different in different time periods even for the same sweeping area, and thus the generated sub-map information is not completely consistent. In such a case, there may be an undetected blind area, i.e., a non-overlapping area of the historical sub-map information and the current sub-map information, throughout the public cleaning area. Through the step, the sweeping robot can be controlled to sweep the area which is not detected and is not included in the sub-map information, and the intellectualization and the sweeping efficiency of the sweeping robot are improved.
Further, fig. 3 is a schematic flowchart illustrating a specific process for determining an intersection between sub-map information according to an embodiment of the present invention. Specifically, in the image processing step shown in fig. 3, first, in step S1021, edge detection is performed on the sub-map information uploaded by each of the sweeping robots. This step is performed in the central server, and those skilled in the art understand that the image edge information is mainly concentrated in the high frequency band, and the edge detection is essentially high frequency filtering. In spatial domain operations, sharpening an image is to compute a differential. Due to the discrete signals of the digital image, the differential operation becomes a calculation of the difference or gradient. There are many edge detection (gradient) operators in image processing, and common ones include ordinary first order difference, Robert operator (cross difference), Sobel operator, etc., which are based on finding the gradient strength. The laplacian (second order difference) is based on zero crossing detection. And (4) calculating the gradient and setting a threshold value to obtain an edge image. And the central server reads the data in the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot, and determines the boundary of the sub-map uploaded by each sweeping robot through the edge detection algorithm.
Subsequently, by step S1022, the intersection of the plurality of pieces of sub-map information with each other is determined based on the edge detection. After the boundary of each sub-map is determined in step S1021, in this step, an intersection between each piece of sub-map information is further acquired, so as to determine whether there is an overlapping area between the plurality of sub-maps. And then sending the map information of the overlapped area to the corresponding sweeping robots, and sharing the map information among the sweeping robots with the overlapped area.
Further, fig. 4 shows a specific flowchart of another control method for the cooperative work of the sweeping robot according to the embodiment of the present invention. As a preferred variant of the embodiment shown in fig. 1, the method comprises the following steps:
step S201, obtaining the sub-map information generated by each sweeping robot. The skilled person can refer to step S101 in fig. 1 described above to implement this step. Further, in a more preferred variation of the step S201, the step further includes the following sub-steps in sequence: establishing communication connection between a plurality of sweeping robots and the central server; judging whether the sweeping robot is communicated with the central server for the first time or not; if the sweeping robot communicates with the central server for the first time, the central server controls the sweeping robot to generate the sub-map information and performs closed-loop detection on the sub-map information; on the contrary, if the sweeping robot does not communicate with the central server for the first time, the central server calls historical sub-map information corresponding to the sweeping robot, controls the sweeping robot to generate the sub-map information based on the historical sub-map information, and performs closed-loop detection on the sub-map information. The above steps can be implemented by referring to step S1011, step S1012, step S1013, and step S1014 in the embodiment shown in fig. 2, which are not described herein again. Furthermore, in the case that the sweeping robot is not in communication with the central server for the first time, the method further includes the step of generating a non-overlapping area based on the historical sub-map information and the sub-map information, and controlling the sweeping robot closest to the non-overlapping area to perform the sweeping operation in the non-overlapping area. Those skilled in the art can implement this step with reference to step S1015 in fig. 2.
Further, step S2021 is executed to perform edge detection on the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot; step S2022, determining an intersection of the sub-map information based on the edge detection to generate overlapped map information, and sending the overlapped map information to a corresponding sweeping robot. It should be noted that, as a refinement of step S102 in fig. 1, a person skilled in the art may combine step S102 in fig. 1 and step S1021 and step S1022 in fig. 3 to implement step S2021 and step S2022, which is not described herein again. Further, step S2023 is included after the step S2022, and global map information is generated based on the union of the sub map information. The technical personnel in the field understand that each sweeping robot can only obtain a map obtained by scanning the environment within the sweeping capacity of the sweeping robot, and the global map information is obtained by combining the central server based on all the sub-map information. Subsequently, the central server may divide different parts of the overlapping area in the global map into different sweeping robots for sweeping, i.e. after step S2023, perform the steps of: and controlling the sweeping robot closest to the overlapped area to execute the sweeping work. Specifically, step S2031, step S2032, and step S2033 in fig. 4 describe the above steps in more detail.
First, in step S2031, based on the global map information, positioning information of each of the sweeping robots is acquired. The positioning information refers to coordinate positioning information of the sweeping robots in the global map, and the positioning information is used for representing coordinates of each sweeping robot in the global map, position relations among the sweeping robots and position relations between the sweeping robots and corresponding overlapping areas.
And S2032, determining the sweeping robot closest to the overlapped area based on the positioning information. In this step, each coordinate point in the overlap area is used as an object to acquire the sweeping robot closest to the coordinate point.
And step S2033, sending a control instruction for generating a map and executing cleaning work to the robot cleaner closest to the overlapped area. Specifically, the central server performs area division on the global map again according to the respective positions of the sweeping robots and the position relationship between the sweeping robots and different coordinate points in the overlapping area. And sending the re-divided area generation map to the corresponding sweeping robot, and meanwhile, receiving a control instruction from the central server by the sweeping robot to carry out map sweeping on the responsible area.
Further, in a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the sweeper robot closest to the overlap area is determined as follows. Firstly, extracting the positioning information of the feature points in the overlapping area in the global map information. The feature point is an arbitrary coordinate point in the overlap region, in order to reduce the calculation amount of the central server, the overlap region may be divided into a series of squares having the same size, the area size represented by the squares may be increased or decreased as needed, and the center point of the square is used as the feature point. And then determining the sweeping robot closest to the feature points according to the positioning information of the feature points and the positioning information of the sweeping robots, which is not described herein again.
It should be noted that, in the present invention, the central server may store the sub map information, the overlap area map information, and the global map information in each sweeping operation control process. Through the arrangement, when the next cleaning is carried out, the composition completed at present can be matched with the historical construction map, so that each sweeping robot can be better guided to carry out cleaning, the number of the sweeping robots to carry out detection and calculation again is reduced, and the composition efficiency is greatly improved. Those skilled in the art understand that matching the currently completed composition with the history construction map can be achieved by extracting feature points in the map, and the like, which is not described herein again.
The apparatus of the present invention is described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that the control method of the present invention is implemented by various logic units of the apparatus part of the present invention, and is implemented by a combination of a digital signal processor, an application specific integrated circuit, a field programmable gate array or other programmable logic device, hardware components (such as a register and a FIFO), a processor executing a series of firmware instructions, and programming software.
Fig. 5 is a schematic block diagram of a control device for a sweeping robot working in cooperation according to an embodiment of the present invention. Specifically, the control device for the collaborative work of the sweeping robot comprises a sub-map information acquisition unit, an overlapped map information generation unit, a collaborative control unit and a communication unit. The sub-map information acquisition unit is used for acquiring sub-map information generated by each sweeping robot, and after each sweeping robot generates a sub-map by means of a visual SLAM algorithm composition of the sweeping robot, the sub-map information is sent to the sub-map information acquisition unit. The overlap map information generation unit is configured to generate overlap map information based on an intersection of the sub-map information with each other to determine a corresponding overlap region. As understood by those skilled in the art, each item of acquired overlapping map information corresponds to two or more sub-map information with intersection and two or more sweeping robots corresponding to the two or more sub-map information. After the overlapped map information generating unit generates the overlapped map information, the central server sends the overlapped map information to the corresponding sweeping robot. Therefore, the sweeping robots share the map information data which are respectively constructed, so as to be used for the decision and execution of the subsequent cleaning operation. And the cooperative control unit controls the sweeping robot to cooperatively execute sweeping work based on the overlapped map information. Specifically, after the cleaning area corresponding to each sweeping robot is re-determined according to the overlapping map information, the sweeping robot sends a control instruction for executing a cleaning task to each sweeping robot, and after receiving the control instruction, the sweeping robot executes the corresponding cleaning task in the respective cleaning area according to the control instruction. Further, the communication unit is used as a bridge for communication and data transmission between the central server and the sweeping robots in the invention, and is used for realizing communication and information transmission between the central server and the sweeping robots, so as to construct a framework with the central server as a control center and the sweeping robots as execution terminals. It should be noted that the communication mode between the central server and the plurality of sweeping robots can be realized by selecting different types of communication interfaces according to needs. Specifically, the network communication protocol may be implemented by TCP, UDP, ARP, ICMP, HTTP, DNS, DHCP, and the like, which is not described herein again.
Further, as a sub-embodiment of the embodiment shown in fig. 5, fig. 6 shows a schematic diagram of a specific module structure of the cooperative control unit according to the specific implementation of the present invention. As shown in fig. 6, the cooperative control unit further includes an edge detection module and a first determination module. The edge detection module is used for carrying out edge detection on the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot. Those skilled in the art understand that image edge information is mainly concentrated in high frequency band, and edge detection is essentially high frequency filtering. In spatial domain operations, sharpening an image is to compute a differential. Due to the discrete signals of the digital image, the differential operation becomes a calculation of the difference or gradient. There are many edge detection (gradient) operators in image processing, and common ones include ordinary first order difference, Robert operator (cross difference), Sobel operator, etc., which are based on finding the gradient strength. The laplacian (second order difference) is based on zero crossing detection. And (4) calculating the gradient and setting a threshold value to obtain an edge image. And the central server reads the data in the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot, and determines the boundary of the sub-map uploaded by each sweeping robot through the edge detection algorithm. Further, the first determination module is configured to determine an intersection of the sub-map information with each other based on the edge detection. The first determining module obtains the intersection, i.e., the same part, of the sub-map information by performing image matching on the sub-map information, so as to determine the overlapping area between the sweeping robots, which is not described herein again.
Further, fig. 7 shows a schematic structural diagram of a module of another control device for a sweeping robot working in cooperation according to an embodiment of the present invention. In such an embodiment, the control device for the collaborative work of the sweeping robot comprises a sub-map information acquisition unit, an overlapped map information generation unit, a collaborative control unit, a global map information generation unit, a communication unit and a storage unit. The sub-map information obtaining unit, the overlapped map information generating unit, and the communication unit may refer to fig. 5 and the embodiment thereof, which are not described herein again. As a preferred variation of the embodiment shown in fig. 5, in fig. 7, the global map information generating unit is configured to generate global map information based on a union of the sub-map information. Specifically, the global map information generating unit merges all the acquired sub-map information to finally acquire the global map information, where the global map information includes all the sub-map information and is used to represent a region where the plurality of sweeping robots cooperatively work. Further, the cooperative control unit specifically includes an edge detection module, a first determination module, a first positioning module, a second determination module, and an instruction sending module. The edge detection module and the first determination module may refer to fig. 6 and the specific embodiment thereof, which are not described herein again. In this embodiment, the first positioning module is configured to obtain, based on the global map information, positioning information of each sweeping robot, that is, a coordinate condition of each sweeping robot in the global map. The second determination module is used for determining the sweeping robot closest to the overlapping area based on the positioning information. The instruction sending module is used for sending a control instruction for generating a map and executing cleaning work to the robot sweeper closest to the overlapped area. Through the arrangement, the cooperative control unit is utilized to realize that the sweeping robots execute sweeping work in the divided designated areas according to the control instruction, and meanwhile, the repeated sweeping of the same area by different sweeping robots is avoided. Further, the storage unit is configured to store the sub-map information, the overlap area map information, and the global map information. Therefore, when cleaning is carried out next time, matching can be carried out through the composition finished at present and the historical construction map, so that each sweeping robot can be better guided to carry out cleaning, the number of the sweeping robots to carry out detection and calculation again is reduced, and the composition efficiency is greatly improved.
As a preferred sub-embodiment of the embodiment shown in fig. 7, the second determining module further comprises an extracting module and a third determining module. The extraction module is used for extracting positioning information of the feature points in the overlapping area in the global map information; the third determining module is used for determining the sweeping robot closest to the feature points according to the positioning information of the feature points and the positioning information of the sweeping robots. In such an embodiment, the second determining module determines the division of different areas in the overlapping area by determining the nearest sweeping robot to the coordinate points of all areas in the overlapping area, which is not described herein again.
Further, fig. 8 shows a schematic topology structure diagram of a control system of a sweeping robot working cooperatively according to an embodiment of the present invention. The control system of robot collaborative work sweeps floor includes central server and a plurality of robot of sweeping the floor, wherein, it is a plurality of sweep the floor the robot respectively with central server connects and the communication, central server control is a plurality of robot of sweeping the floor carries out in coordination and cleans the work. The number of the sweeping robots can be reasonably set according to the sweeping capacity of each sweeping robot and the area size of the area needing to be cleaned. Furthermore, the maximum map areas covered by the plurality of sweeping robots are the same or different according to the configuration of the sweeping robots.
As shown in fig. 8, in the control system of the present invention, each of the sweeping robots may work cooperatively after communicating with the central server, or may work independently. The sweeping robot can build a map through a visual SLAM algorithm. Each sweeping robot uploads the sub-map information generated by the sweeping robot to the central server, the central server receives the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot and generates overlapping map information and global map information between every two sweeping robots, the central server calculates possible blind areas on the map and sends instructions to the nearest sweeping robot to execute, and the detailed description is omitted.
The foregoing description of specific embodiments of the present invention has been presented. It is to be understood that the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments described above, and that various changes and modifications may be made by one skilled in the art within the scope of the appended claims without departing from the spirit of the invention.
Claims (12)
1. A control method for cooperative work of sweeping robots is characterized by comprising the following steps of:
a. acquiring sub-map information generated by each sweeping robot;
b. generating overlapping map information based on the intersection of the sub-map information to determine a corresponding overlapping area, and sending the overlapping map information to the corresponding sweeping robot;
c. controlling the sweeping robot to cooperatively execute sweeping work based on the overlapped map information;
wherein, before the step a, a step a1. is further included to establish communication connection between a plurality of sweeping robots and the central server, the central server controls the plurality of sweeping robots to perform data calculation in parallel, the plurality of sweeping robots are only used to execute control instructions sent by the central server,
wherein, in the step a, each sweeping robot generates the sub-map information by the following method:
a2. judging whether the sweeping robot is communicated with the central server for the first time, if so, executing the step a3, and if not, executing the step a 4;
a3. the central server controls the sweeping robot to generate the sub-map information and performs closed-loop detection on the sub-map information;
a4. the central server calls historical sub-map information corresponding to the sweeping robot, controls the sweeping robot to generate the sub-map information based on the historical sub-map information and performs closed-loop detection on the sub-map information,
wherein, the following steps are further executed after the step a 4:
a5. and generating a non-overlapping area based on the historical sub-map information and the sub-map information, and controlling the sweeping robot closest to the non-overlapping area to perform the sweeping work in the non-overlapping area.
2. The control method according to claim 1, wherein the step b further comprises the steps of:
b1. carrying out edge detection on the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot;
b2. determining an intersection of the plurality of sub-map information with each other based on the edge detection.
3. The control method according to claim 2, wherein the step c further comprises a step c1. controlling the sweeping robot closest to the overlapping area to perform the sweeping work.
4. The control method according to claim 3, wherein the step b further comprises the steps of:
generating global map information based on the union of the sub-map information;
accordingly, the step c1 includes the following steps:
c11. acquiring positioning information of each sweeping robot based on the global map information;
c12. determining a sweeping robot closest to the overlapping area based on the positioning information;
c13. and sending a control instruction for generating a map and executing cleaning work to the robot sweeper closest to the overlapped area.
5. The control method according to claim 4, characterized in that the sweeping robot closest to the overlapping area is determined by:
extracting positioning information of the feature points in the overlapping area in the global map information;
and determining the sweeping robot closest to the feature points according to the positioning information of the feature points and the positioning information of the sweeping robots.
6. The control method according to claim 5, wherein each sweeping robot generates the sub-map information and/or performs closed-loop detection by a visual SLAM algorithm.
7. The control method according to claim 6, characterized by further comprising, after the step c, the steps of:
d. the central server stores the sub-map information, the overlap area map information, and the global map information as historical sub-map information, historical overlap area map information, and historical global map information.
8. The utility model provides a control device of robot collaborative work sweeps floor which characterized in that includes:
a sub-map information acquisition unit, configured to acquire sub-map information generated by each of the sweeping robots;
an overlap map information generating unit for generating overlap map information to determine a corresponding overlap area based on an intersection of the sub-map information with each other;
the cooperative control unit is used for controlling the sweeping robot to cooperatively execute sweeping work based on the overlapped map information; and
a communication unit for communication and information transmission between the central server and the plurality of sweeping robots,
wherein the cooperative control unit includes:
the edge detection module is used for carrying out edge detection on the sub-map information uploaded by each sweeping robot;
a first determination module for determining an intersection of a plurality of the sub-map information with each other based on the edge detection,
the system further comprises a global map information generating unit, a map information generating unit and a map information generating unit, wherein the global map information generating unit is used for generating global map information based on the union set of the sub-map information; accordingly, the number of the first and second electrodes,
the cooperative control unit further comprises a first positioning module, which is used for acquiring the positioning information of each sweeping robot based on the global map information;
a second determination module for determining a sweeping robot closest to the overlapping area based on the positioning information; and
and the instruction sending module is used for sending a control instruction for generating a map and executing cleaning work to the robot sweeper closest to the overlapped area.
9. The control apparatus of claim 8, wherein the second determination module comprises:
the extraction module is used for extracting positioning information of the feature points in the overlapping area in the global map information;
and the third determining module is used for determining the sweeping robot closest to the feature points according to the positioning information of the feature points and the positioning information of the sweeping robots.
10. The control apparatus according to claim 8 or 9, characterized by further comprising a storage unit for storing the sub-map information, the overlap area map information, and the global map information as historical sub-map information, historical overlap area map information, and historical global map information.
11. A control system for the cooperative operation of sweeping robots, which is controlled by the control device of any one of claims 8 to 10, is characterized by comprising a central server and a plurality of sweeping robots,
the sweeping robots are respectively connected with and communicate with the central server, and the central server controls the sweeping robots to cooperatively perform sweeping work.
12. The control system of claim 11, wherein the maximum map areas covered by the plurality of sweeping robots are the same or different according to their own configuration.
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| CN111421564B (en) * | 2020-06-10 | 2020-11-06 | 北京云迹科技有限公司 | Robot-based disinfection method and system |
| CN111813111B (en) * | 2020-06-29 | 2024-02-20 | 佛山科学技术学院 | Multi-robot cooperative working method |
| CN113749565B (en) * | 2021-09-23 | 2023-08-15 | 珠海一微半导体股份有限公司 | Multi-floor cleaning control method of robot |
| CN113876249A (en) * | 2021-09-28 | 2022-01-04 | 深圳市云鼠科技开发有限公司 | Cleaning method and multi-machine cooperative cleaning system |
| CN113854906B (en) * | 2021-10-22 | 2022-07-15 | 广州科语机器人有限公司 | Control method, device and equipment for cooperative operation of multiple cleaning robots |
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