Area and Coverage

Stebbs919

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Jan 6, 2020
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So I'm not sure if this would be the right spot to ask, but geometry made sense to me who happens to be terrible at math...

I read an article about a robot vacuum that will learn routes and it had me thinking. I own a small business and our office has a room in the shape of an octagon; and has hallways on the north, east and west sides. How would I be able to figure out the most efficient route to teach the vacuum robot? Let's assume that the room and hallways are free of obstacles and we can break the main "route" in to 3 different routes (this would ensure that if an issue arises mid route, the robot wouldn't want to vacuum a ton of space it already did).

I appreciate any help, this could potentially save some serious money for us in a cleaning service.
 
You need to define what you mean by "efficient" in this case.

Do you mean the shortest distance the robot can traverse and vacuum the entire room?

Are there any constraints on the robots motion? Are there any sorts of motion that are deemed more efficient than others?

I don't see why simply breaking the room into vertical or horizontal stripes and having the robot move on those stripes wouldn't be adequate.
There is zero waste in movement doing this and the entire room is covered.
 
You need to define what you mean by "efficient" in this case.

Do you mean the shortest distance the robot can traverse and vacuum the entire room?

Are there any constraints on the robots motion? Are there any sorts of motion that are deemed more efficient than others?

I don't see why simply breaking the room into vertical or horizontal stripes and having the robot move on those stripes wouldn't be adequate.
There is zero waste in movement doing this and the entire room is covered.
Thank you for the quick response!

Efficient would be least amount of time to cover the area, not traversing over what it already has and there would not be any constraints in the robot's motion.

I would like to cut the actual time it is in use for 2 reasons.

1: battery concerns. 6hr run time, 3hr charge time. The room and hallways are on the large size.
2: I do not want to turn this in to an extra shift. I would rather pay someone some extra overtime twice a week instead of having to create a half of a shift and wasting one of my employees time.

I was of the same mindset as you with breaking down the halls vertically and the room horizontally, but then I thought about how a zamboni travels when resurfacing a hockey rink. This made me think about what would really be efficient/quicker, but I'm sure that is just associated with the shape not being a true rectangle.

Thank you again.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if part of the zamboni's movement is due to need multiple passes over the area. Further the zamboni has rather restricted turning motion (I think).

So the hallways must be done as well? Do you have some dimensions of these rooms and specs on the robot. We'd need to know how to convert linear distance into battery usage. The same would go for turns since they are likely to use more juice.

I really don't think there's going to be anything more efficient that just coming up with stripes.

The one thing I can think that might help is being able to have a plan that has the robot near it's charging station when it needs to be charged each time. Do you think the robot will need to be recharged at least once in order to do the entire job?
 
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