• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2010

The coverage ability is one of essential techniques for the Robotic Vacuum Cleaner (RVC). Most of the RVCs rely on random or regular pattern movement to cover a target space due to the technical difficulties to implement localization and map and constraints of hardwares such as controller and sensors. In this paper, we consider two main issues which are low computational load and using sensors with very limited sensing capabilities. First, in our approach, computing procedures to build map and detect the RVC's position are minimized by simplifying data obtained from sensors. To reduce computational load, it needs simply presenting an environment with objects of various shapes. Another isuue mentioned above is regarded as one of the most important problems in our approach, because we consider that many RVCs use low-cost sensor systems such as an infrared sensor or ultrasonic sensor with limited capabilities in limited range, detection uncertainty, measurement noise, etc. Methods presented in this paper are able to apply to general RVCs equipped with these sensors. By both simulation and real experiment, we evaluate our method and verify that the proposed method guarantees a complete coverage.