Samsung Files Cleaning Robot Patent for Curved Zig-Zag Path

News
By Wolfgang Gruener
published

Samsung has a Roomba-like, autonomous cleaning robot called the Navibot, which the company markets outside the U.S.

It's already an ingenious and rather expensive household gadget, which is apparently seeing further improvement, that turns Samsung into front runner in the race for the most frivolous patent filing of 2013.

The patent application #20130000675 is titled "Robot cleaner and control method thereof". Samsung has a history of interesting robot patents, including devices that mimic human walking or breathing or ideas that put RoboCop into real life, so even a cleaning robot may include some interesting tech.

Samsung's Navibot, a $600+ cleaning robot is already a rather sophisticated device with a camera that video-records your home and determines the most efficient cleaning path as a result of it. A new patent filing indicates the Navibot will get even better: Instead of a traditional zig-zag pattern, the Navibot will now move in a curved zig-zag pattern, "thus decreasing the time required to clean an area during a change of the traveling direction of the robot cleaner." The idea: Because a traditional zig-zag pattern in lines requires the robot to start and stop periodically, the curved pattern is faster since there are no interruptions - which is apparently a clever improvement enough to justify a patent filing.

I have not had a chance to look at the Navibot myself and how well the robot cleans floors and whether the curved zig-zag provides any advantage over the Roomba, which moves in traditional zig-zag lines.

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Wolfgang Gruener
15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • digiex
    Here comes the Jetsons.
    Reply
  • Jerky_san
    I gotta say I have a roomba and just got a neato(liked the neato's mapping system).. looked for a samsung but couldn't find one.. The ones I did find were quiet expensive but they let you control it with your phone and stuff when your not home which I find rather neat.. Must say they are coming leaps and bounds on these robots.. the only thing i wish it would do is have longer run time and empty itself..
    Reply
  • maddad
    Amazing. If Apple had filed a zig-zaging patent there would have been all sorts of haters commenting here. Just goes to show how biased folks really are here.
    Reply
  • EDVINASM
    maddadAmazing. If Apple had filed a zig-zaging patent there would have been all sorts of haters commenting here. Just goes to show how biased folks really are here.
    Sorry to interrupt your thought here but it wasn't Samsung who started bi$£&ing about Apple. See the reason of such outbreak? I said that number of times and I am going to repeat myself - if all manufacturers were like Apple I don't know what would we live in and be using these days. Patents are creating jobs for trolls and stopping the progress.
    Keep supporting Apple. Leave Samsung for people wanting innovation at affordable price.
    Reply
  • fnh
    I believe you could patent a cat-carrying-capable, autonomous cleaning robot.
    Reply
  • spentshells
    maddadAmazing. If Apple had filed a zig-zaging patent there would have been all sorts of haters commenting here. Just goes to show how biased folks really are here.
    I came to cry foul but as you are complaining nobody cried foul I will not
    Reply
  • unoriginal1
    "Samsung has a history of interesting robot patents, including devices that mimic human walking or breathing or ideas that put RoboCop into real life"

    This makes me want to work at a patent office just to see the different ideas out there. And at the same time I wished we had more of a open source market so our technology could flourish. I believe we'd be 60 years advanced without these stupid patents :/.
    Reply
  • wemakeourfuture
    EDVINASMSorry to interrupt your thought here but it wasn't Samsung who started bi$£&ing about Apple. See the reason of such outbreak? I said that number of times and I am going to repeat myself - if all manufacturers were like Apple I don't know what would we live in and be using these days. Patents are creating jobs for trolls and stopping the progress. Keep supporting Apple. Leave Samsung for people wanting innovation at affordable price.
    Sorry to burst your bubble but Apple did not start these frivolous patents, they just joined what other manufacturers were doing. Nice try to blame Apple for starting all these.

    They just happen to be the biggest company in the world so every patent and story about them gets reported so we see a plethora of Apple stories but all companies are doing this its just not as publicized.
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    I wonder if we are going to see the same thing with robotics that we have seen in the PC/Compute industry.
    In the PC industry most people (in the States at least) started with a home computer, then things started getting gadgity with 100 little computers all over the house (cell phones, PDAs, MP3 Players, multiple printers, game consoles, handheld consoles, cable boxes, DVRs, laptops, tablets, CD/DVD/HDDVD/BluRay players, stereo, TVs, etc.). But now we are starting to see a consolidation of devices. Your PC is still a PC, but also acts as a server of sorts. Phones and tablets are beginning to eat up all of the multitude of mobile devices. Video game consoles tried consolidating the TV/Entertainment devices last generation, but just might manage to do it this time.
    But the point is that where just a few years ago you 'had to have' all of these devices littering your life, now you only really need a smartphone, a tablet or laptop, a desktop, and a TV with console to have all of the same functionality. And in 5-7 years I imagine we will simply be down to a phone, desktop/NAS, and a TV with console to have the same functionality that we have today.

    Anywho, the point is that we use to need (and most of us have) tons of single use devices, and we are moving to a point where you have less devices that are good at a lot of things. I wonder if robotics will follow a similar course where we have a vacuume/sweeper, a mop, a clothes washer/drier/folder, a lifter, a wall cleaner/painter, a hair cutter, a chef, a driver, etc. And then after 30-40 years move down to 1-2 multi-purpose devices.
    Personally I am stoked that robotics is finally getting somewhere useful (no matter how silly this patent is)! Next we need it to get cheap, and then we need to consolidate functionality, and then we need to focus on efficiency. Here's hoping it all works out.
    Reply
  • fimbulvinter
    fnhI believe you could patent a cat-carrying-capable, autonomous cleaning robot.
    I am a patenting a cat-assisted semi-autonomous cleaning robot >_>
    Reply