Recently, with the millet ecological chain enterprise Beijing stone century science and technology limited company (hereinafter referred to as "stone technology") in the science and technology board consideration through, sweeping robot competition for the king of the throne officially kicked off, the financial graffiti produced by the "sweeping robot battle: Corvus will be defeated by the stone science and technology". is even more widespread concern.
Financial graffiti analysis, stone technology in 2016 after the launch of the first sweeping robot, with the comprehensive advantages of millet, in the Internet channel shine, that year, that is, to achieve 200 million in sales. 2017 launched its own brand "stone" sweeping robots, in one fell swoop to become a market hit, in 2018, stone brand robots Achieve revenue of nearly 1.4 billion, sales to catch up with Mijia.In the first half of 2019, stone technology in the category of sweeping robots to achieve revenue of 1.98 billion, of which the stone brand of 1.17 billion, the Mijia brand of 740 million, in the sales of the brand of Corvus beyond.
According to CICOM's calculations, in the field of sweeping robots, Corvus is still the brand with the highest market share, but with the rapid rise of stone technology, the advantage of Corvus is shrinking. From the financial data disclosed, the sales of the Corvus brand sweeping robots in the first half of 2019 were 1.63 billion, of which the sales of the four overseas companies were 550 million, and assuming that the majority of the products sold by the four companies were sweeping robots, the sales in the domestic market were about 1.08 billion.
With the maturity of the sweeping robot technology, the oligopoly of the domestic market is becoming more and more obvious, product intelligence is making significant changes in the market pattern, what kind of features will make us more comfortable to use in our lives? Corvus, stone technology and other sweeping robot companies are trying their best, I also took pains to analyse the sensor technology for the black science and technology of intelligent sweeping robots.
Planning sweeping
Pre-set house type map, and in accordance with the planning route for cleaning, efficiently complete the cleaning task. The application of technology has visual navigation, laser cruise positioning, gyroscope positioning and so on.
Visual navigation technology: through the camera real-time capture the impact of image analysis to identify obstacles, measure and update the best planning cleaning route, can be used for complex cleaning environment, but due to the low accuracy of measurement, and light restrictions, can not work around the clock.
Gyroscope positioning technology: gyroscope positioning is one of the most widely used indoor high-precision positioning technology, the use of relative positioning method - navigation position projection method (Dead-Reckoning Method), the use of gyroscopes on the machine to obtain the robot's motion dynamic information, through the recursive cumulative formula to estimate the position of the relative state of the initial trial, the technology relies on absolute beacons, the route planning a single This technology relies on absolute beacons and has a single route planning, and is mostly applied to fixed obstacle environments.
Laser positioning technology: through the multi-level calibration target position and segmented fitting algorithm, in the cleaning and map building can be a high-speed 360 ° rotary scanning frequency scanning around the distance of 8 metres, high sampling rate coupled with high scanning accuracy, real-time construction of maps and planning a reasonable sweeping path, suitable for a variety of complex furniture environments, due to the use of pulsed mode of operation, in line with the laser class 1 safety standards, for humans and pets no harm. However, due to the penetrating nature of the light, when encountered with glass and other light-transmitting substances, blinding, and at the same time by the installation location, close to the fuselage position of the low obstacles can not be completely covered. In addition, the laser sensor restricts the overall cost.
Walking ability
The home environment is complex, from time to time there are carpets, thresholds, sofa bed bottom gap, etc., which requires intelligent sweeping robots to be able to overcome these obstacles, in the avoidance of obstacles will not be tripped up by tables, chairs, legs and stools, at the same time, in the event of encountering a step how to avoid to protect themselves. The application of technology has ultrasonic obstacle avoidance, infrared obstacle avoidance and so on.
Infrared obstacle avoidance technology: through the infrared sensors transmit signals, transmit the process of encountering tables and chairs and other obstacles in the signal interruptions, so as to identify the location of obstacles to avoid or adjust the cleaning route, infrared signals are also subject to the light transmittance limitations and blindness.
Ultrasonic obstacle avoidance technology: ultrasonic obstacle avoidance technology and infrared obstacle avoidance also adopts the TOF principle, the difference lies in the imitation of the ultrasonic echo ranging technology similar to that used by bats, through the ultrasonic sensors emit pulsed ultrasonic, through the calculation of the acoustic propagation process after encountering obstacles such as tables and chairs, to the time difference between the reflection of receiving the return wave to identify the location of obstacles, thus avoiding or adjusting the cleaning route. The detection angle is large and the coverage distance is long enough to be suitable for the general home environment. And because of sending for pulse type of low-power mechanical wave, no harm to humans and pets, and at the same time applicable to transparent obstacles, and the cost of ultrasonic waves is one of the major advantages.
Cleaning mode
Family of various environments, some of the ground material for the wooden floor or tile, some flooring carpet, etc., which requires intelligent sweeping robot can identify these materials, adjust different cleaning mode, the application of technology for ultrasonic recognition.
Ultrasonic recognition technology: through the different floor materials to ultrasonic reflection or absorption characteristics, and through the return signal characteristics of comparative analysis, to identify the family commonly used floor materials, so as to change the cleaning strategy in real time, to achieve a full range of cleaning effect. It is suitable for wood flooring, floor tiles, carpets and other occasions. The recognition of steps is crucial for sweeping robots, and the ultrasonic sensors are compatible with the recognition of steps on the floor at the same time.
In practice, multi-sensor fusion will become the mainstream direction of intelligent sweeping robots, and ultrasonic sensors with vision sensors, laser sensors, gyroscopes and so on for the most popular integration programme on the market.
At present, the ultrasonic sensors researched by Audiowell have been widely used in intelligent sweeping robots. In the future, Audiowell will invest more focused and professional research in the ultrasonic obstacle avoidance technology and ultrasonic recognition technology of sweeping robots, and we believe that with the continuous progress of science and technology, intelligent sweeping robots will bring us more different experiences and surprises.
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