Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: heinz@focus-systems.on.ca (Heinz Wolter)
Subject: Re: Carpet\Linoleum Floor Vacu-bot ? $SPOILERS$
Message-ID: <CzA7uu.8q4@focus-systems.on.ca>
Organization: Focus Automation Systems Inc.
References: <CMOORE.131.0010980B@wpo.csd.scarolina.edu> <3a3dsa$bik@handler.Eng.Sun.COM> <3a58ia$2d2@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 23:56:53 GMT
Lines: 32

In article <3a58ia$2d2@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> kmgibbs@ix.netcom.com (Kent Gibbs) writes:
>In <3a3dsa$bik@handler.Eng.Sun.COM> cmcmanis@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) 
>writes: 
>
>>
>>Southern Boy (CMOORE@wpo.csd.scarolina.edu) wrote:
>>: I think the actual body thing would be relatively easy - wheels, 
>>
>>The trick with vacuuming is to know when you need to and when you
>>don't. Developing a sensor, or suite of sensors, that can identify a
>>dusty floor, a clean floor, and a floor that is going from dusty to
>>clean is the knot hole of this project. Continuous vacuum operation is
>>too noisy.
>>
>	Just an idea, if I'm not mistaken, early smoke detectors used 
>particle defraction of a light beam to detect smoke particulate didn't 
>they?  This wouldn't allow the robot to decide if the floor/carpet 
>needed cleaning until it actually started cleaning, but it may be an 
>answer to determining that a 'cleaned' area is within 'accceptable' 
>limits.  Of course, you could just through this out and have the robot 
>clean a preprogrmmed area on a preprogrammed schedule.  

Better than that! Why not put a microphone in the vacuum path, so that 
particles will hit (say a a speaker used as a mic), amplified and sensed
by some circuit that can differentiate it from other sounds. No better 
way to know if there's stuff there than to TRY to pick it up. Some commercial
vacuums (methinks some models from Sear(tm)) used a metal disk to amplify
particle sounds... just a thought. It probably works better for carpet than
for linoleum. sigh!

heinz

