Skip to main content
Log in

Cleaning and Household Robots: A Technology Survey

  • Published:
Autonomous Robots Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper describes some of the main technology areas that have been actually used in the development of cleaning robots. The approach taken in this survey is to examine the characteristics of cleaning robots that have made successful laboratory demonstration or have become commercial products. We then identify the technology approach followed by the authors, and group their contributions in a few general areas. The result is a summary of used approaches to thesolution of difficult, albeit very practical, problems in the area of autonomous execution of cleaning tasks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agah, A. and Tanie, K. 1999. Interaction of and anthropomorphic simulated human with a simulated service robot. Simulation, 72(1):12–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blythe, J. and Reilly, W. 1993. Integrating reactive and deliberative planning in a household robot. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 6–13.

  • Bonasso, R. 1993. What good is your vacuum robot's intelligence. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 14–18.

  • Brittain, R. and D'Ambrosio, B. 1993. Autonomous vacuum cleaners must be bayesian. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 19–22.

  • Brutzman, D. 1993. Beyond intelligent vacuum cleaners. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 23–25.

  • Burhanpurkar, V. 1993. Design of commercial autonomous service robots. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 26–33.

  • Chen, C. and Trivedi, M. 1995. Task planning and action coordination in integrated sensor-based robots. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 25(4):569–591.

    Google Scholar 

  • Choset, H. and Pignon, P. 1997. Coverage path planning: The boustrophedon cellular decomposition. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics, Canberra, Australia.

  • Coombs, D. 1993. RoboVac and the cat will get along famously. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 34–36.

  • Crisman, J. 1993. Multiple, cooperating, simple agents for the area coverage problem. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 37–41.

  • Crowley, J. 1996. Integration and control of reactive processes. In Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 9–16.

  • Dario, P., Guglielmelli, E., Genovese, V., and Toro, M. 1996. Robot assistants: Applications and evolution. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 18:729–766.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doty, K. and Harrison, R. 1993. Sweep strategies for a sensor-driven, behavior-based vacuum cleaning agent. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 42–50.

  • Elfes, A. 1996. Skill acquisition by autonomous robots using a multi-level control architecture. In Proceedings of IEEEWorkshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 17–23.

  • Elgot-Drapkin, J., Kraus, S., Miller, M., Nirkhe, M., and Perlis, D. 1993. Vacuum-logic. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 51–54.

  • Ettelet, E., Furtw¨angler, R., Hanebeck, U., and Schmidt, G. 1998. Design issues of a semi-autonomous robotic assistant for the health care environment. Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, (22):191–209.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, J. 1996. Sensor fusion and geometric reasoning in mobile robots. In Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 33–41.

  • Feiten, W. 1996. Technology requirements for advanced service robots. In Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 69–77.

  • Firby, R. 1993. An architecture for a synthetic vacuum cleaner. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 55–63.

  • Gat, E. 1993. Design for an autonomous vacuum. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 64–65.

  • Gavin, A. 1993. A fast, cheap and easy vision system for an autonomous vacuum cleaner. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 66–75.

  • Gips, J. and Green, D. 1993. Trying to KISS with the robot vacuum cleaner. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 66–75.

  • Gomi, T. 1996. An effective approach to the development of service robots. In Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 69–77.

  • Gray, J. 1996. Recent development in advanced robotics and intelligent systems. Computing and Control Engineering Journal, 267–276.

  • Hedler, J. and Seeliger, O. 1993. Exploring vacuuming as a domain of applicability for a reactive planning system. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 79–80.

  • Hofner, C. and Schmidt, G. 1995. Path Planning and guidance techniques for an autonomous mobile cleaning robot. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 14:199–212.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horswill, I. 1993. Lightweight vision-or-how I learned to stop worrying and love my camera. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 76–78.

  • Hoyer,H. 1996. User-oriented control of smart wheelchairs and navigational intelligence. In Proceedings of IEEEWorkshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 51–59.

  • Jarvis, R. 1994. Video plane robot swarms. Journal of Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 11(4):249–258.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, F. 1993. Practical requirements for a domestic vacuumcleaning robot. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 85–90.

  • Jung, D., Cheng, G., and Zelinsky, A. 1997. Robot cleaning and application of distributed planning and real-time vision. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR'97), Camberra, Australia.

  • Kawamura, K. 1996. Service robotics: State of the art. In Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 1–8.

  • Khatib, O. 1996. Mobile manipulation: The robotic assistant. In Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 42–50.

  • Khatib, O. 1999. Mobile manipulation: The robotic assistant. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 26(2–3):175–183.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khatib, O. et al. 1996. Coordination and decentralized cooperation of multiple mobile manipulators. Journal of Robotic Systems 13(11):755–764.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khatib, O. et al. 1999. Robots in human environments: Basic autonomous capabilites. The International Journal of Robotics Research, 18(7):684–696.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurabayashi, D., Ota, J. Arai, T., and Yoshida, E. 1996. Cooperative sweeping by multiple mobile robots. In Proceedings of the IEEE 1996 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 1744–1752.

  • Lee,W. 1993. Spatial semantic hierarchy framework for vacuuming robots. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 91–92.

  • MacKenzie, D. and Balch, T. 1993. Making a clean sweep: Behaviorbased vacuuming. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 93–98.

  • Milios, E. 1996. Navigation and environmental mapping by mobile robots. In Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 24–32.

  • Miller, D. 1993. Cleaning up with second hand sensing. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 99–100.

  • Mital, A., Kulkarmi, M., Huston, R., and Anand, S. 1997. Robot cleaning of underground liquid storage tanks: Feasibility and design considerations. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 20(1):49–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Musliner, D. and Kortencamp, D. 1993. MICE and the science of vacuuming. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 101–104.

  • Neuman de Carvalho, R., Vidal, H., Vieira, P., and Ribeiro, M. 1997. Complete coverage path planning and guidance for cleaning robots. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics, Guimaraes, Portugal.

  • Pirzadeh, A. and Snyder, W. 1990. A unified solution to coverage and search in explored and unexplored terrains unsing indirect control. In Proceedings of the IEEE 1990 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'90), Raleigh, NC, pp. 2113–2119.

  • Prassler, E., Stroulia, E., Strobel, M., and K¨ampke, T. 1997. Mobile robots in office logistics. In Proceedings of the 1997 International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR'97), Monterey, CA.

  • Rivlin, E. and Rosenfeld, A. 1995. Navigation functionalities. Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 62(2):232–244.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, R. 1993. Mobile robot guidance using short-lived heat trail. Robotica, 11:427–431.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slack, M. 1993. Fido's adventures. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 105–108.

  • Ulrich, I., Mondada, F., and Nicoud, J. 1997. Autonomous vacuum cleaner. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 19:233–245.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Seelen, W. 1996. An autonomous robot-system in a neural architecture. In Proceedings of IEEEWorkshop on Intelligent Planning and Control Systems for Service Robots (ICRA'96), Minneapolis, MN, pp. 60–68.

  • Webber, B. and Badler, N. 1993. Introducing real-world vacuumers. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 109–115.

  • Wilkes, D.M., Alford, A., Pack, R.T., Rogers, T., Peters, R.A., and Kawamura, K. 1998. Towards socially intelligent service robots. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 12(7/8):729–766.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkes, D. et al. 1999. Designing for human-robot symbiosis. Industrial Robot, 26(1):49–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yaguchi, H. 1996. Robot introduction to cleaning work in the East Japan Railway Company. Advanced Robotics, 10(4):403–414.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamamoto, M. 1993. SOZZY: A hormaone-driven autonomous vaccum cleaner. In Proceedings of AAAI 1993 Fall Symposium Series: Instantiating Real-World Agents, Raleigh, NC, pp. 116–124.

  • Zelinsky, A., Jarvis, R., Byrne, J., and Yuta, S. 1993. Planning paths of complete coverage of an unstructured environment by a mobile robot. In Proceedings of 1993 Internationalc Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR'93), Tokyo, Japan.

  • Zhou, Y. and Skibniewski, M. 1994. Construction robot force control in cleaning operations. Journal of Aerospace Engineering, 7(1):33–49.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Fiorini, P., Prassler, E. Cleaning and Household Robots: A Technology Survey. Autonomous Robots 9, 227–235 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008954632763

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008954632763

Navigation