Roomba: The Smart Little Vacuum
Recently, our apartment purchased a Roomba Discovery and our floors have never been cleaner! This little device comes with some impressive physical features along with intuitive AI algorithms to be as effective as possible. On the physical end, it has a rounded bumper in the front to know when it hit a wall or some other object (duh). This is obviously crucial for a self maneuvering robot, and it works really well (most of the time). Aside from having a clean setting and a max setting (clean setting but longer), there is a spot clean option where it will spiral out in a 3 foot radius and then come back in for a really thorough cleaning job. When it comes to the software, it has a few behaviors that work in the architecture known as subsumption architecture: a hierarchy of actions ranking in precedence depending on the stimuli it receives like IR information and wall contact. It will wander as a base behavior, and when given commands from the remote, it will put that behavior on hold and let you, the user, guide it around the room. The docking station is my favorite feature because it sends out two IR beams in a cone shape and when the Roomba is low on battery, it will find that IR cone and isolate between the two beams as it drives towards the dock, essentially parking itself perfectly every time!
Like any piece of technology, it isnt perfect. It needs a flat surface to drive on, so shaggy rugs, clothing, and larger objects it can ramp up on will get it stuck indefinitely until the user can free it. the battery life is also quite low, so if it can't find its way back to the dock in time, it will just die, on the floor, and make a sad defeated noise :(. Lastly, if it gets stuck under a small table or a chair, the bumper is big enough to have it hit a leg, spin around to go another direction, hit another leg, then circle under the piece of furniture forever. (The bright side is that spot will be REALLY clean).
DJ Roomba is the man! The programming behind this thing is great. It's extremely useful and a great thing to have in the apartment. Bummer that the wireless frequency interferes with bluetooth frequency :(
ReplyDeleteI find this little Roomba vacuum intriguing. However, part of design is practically and I would be hesitant to spend an exorbitant sum of cash on something like this unless I was really sure it could do all my cleaning for me. I have a hard time believing that this little tiny vacuum would be able to successfully clean my college dorm room.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who lives with Ricky, it is remarkably impressive and being an older model it was very reasonably priced. I think a key to remember though about the design is how it is physically designed. It is very low to the ground to be able to slide under moldings and to go partially under couches and other furniture. Also there is a brush that spins near the front of the Roomba. This sweeps things under the Roomba , and this is especially nice once it gets close to walls. Because of the shape it is unable to get really close to walls, so the little brush is able to sweep things away from the wall so that it can vacuum it up. I have to say that you are spot on with the software. It works very well and sometimes I even get the sense that in a small way it learns part of its environment over time.
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