Achieving increased

functionality
and efficiency in
vacuum robots

RJ Hall
Product marketing engineer

Siva Kothamasu
System engineer

Texas Instruments
Introduction

Vacuum robots continue to experience greater acceptance and use as augmentation,

and even replacement, of manual vacuum cleaners in residences and commercial
enterprises. To be able to perform in complex and even cluttered environments, these
robots must be able to process a great deal of sensing data about their environment
and operate within a prescribed mapping protocol that enables them to effectively
and efficiently clean the desired target regions, all while avoiding operationally fatal
scenarios. Newer trends in vacuum robots such as integration of wireless connectivity
to the cloud, advanced sensor integration to cover diverse environments and voice
recognition enabling home automation are making them smarter and more efficient.

Rapidly developing technologies and system solutions provided by companies such as

Texas Instruments (TI) will provide more options for consumers seeking a vacuum robot
that meet their specific needs and environmental constraints.

Differentiation among vacuum robots

You can generally differentiate vacuum robots by
their navigation strategy, the effectiveness of the
cleaning device, and the ease of interaction with
consumers, such as the human-machine interface
(HMI) employed to start, stop and schedule the
cleaning process.

Regarding mapping and navigation, three general

approaches are used, and some vacuum robots use
more than one of them. These approaches are:
A vacuum robot’s cleaning effectiveness tends to be
• Following a random walk using predefined
a function of the “roughness” of the surface areas
behaviors (wall following, spirals and
it cleans, the effectiveness of the agitator and other
obstacle avoidance).
brushes, and its suction power.
• Performing ceiling visual-simultaneous
A useful HMI enables the easy programming of
localization and mapping (CV-SLAM) using a
cleaning schedules; manual start and stop; cleaning
ceiling vision system that consists of a single
time estimation per room; and, during the cleaning
camera pointing upward.
process, determining what has already been
• Using a low-cost laser-range scanner for 2-D
cleaned and/or what remains to be cleaned, along
laser SLAM.
with the time required to complete this.

Achieving increased functionality and efficiency in vacuum robots 2 January 2018

Vacuum robot functional/operational critical in order to minimize extraneous braking and
requirements and challenges redundant travel.

Several critical factors and requirements are more Fast charging is also critical, since cleaning more
or less common to all vacuum robots pertaining to than three rooms will require one or more returns to
power and operation. the base unit for charging, adding nontrivial time to
the overall operation.
Since this is a portable application, battery
efficiency is important. Cleaning performance The final element of the power vs. runtime equation
(agitator, dirt sensors and suction power) and is the effectiveness of the mapping operation and
environmental sensing and mapping requirements return-to-base operation. Consumers expect their
place challenging demands on the battery. As a robots to clean each room with 100% coverage,
result, you must consider all of these subsystems but this is not possible if there are redundant and
and related operational factors in your battery inefficient coverage algorithms.
design. Considerations include factors such as A number of environmental factors impact effective
the size and weight of the battery itself. A larger- cleaning, including the density of furniture and other
sized rechargeable nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) objects present as well as the variety of surface
battery will extend operational time but will also add areas—along with the commensurate smooth
weight and place an additional load on the frame, floor-to-carpet transitions. An excessive density of
wheels and wheel motors. You must balance these objects will cause the vacuum robot to invoke its
factors in order to arrive at an optimal runtime object-avoidance mechanism excessively, while
between charges. a higher carpet-to-floor-area ratio will put greater
A typical battery pack is rated at 3 Ah. When fully strain on the actuator and vacuum motors, thereby
charged, an 18-V battery will provide around two reducing the duration of cleaning time between
hours of cleaning time (three medium-sized rooms) charges. Dirt, spills and other high concentrations
before needing to recharge. Earlier-generation of debris require additional attention above
vacuum robots required up to seven hours to fully the standard cleaning process and associated
charge the battery, while newer units can fully travel paths.
charge in two hours or less. Finally, the avoidance of an operationally fatal event
The number of motors, including their efficiency and like falling down stairs, off of balconies or off of
motor switching, is an important factor as well. A “step-downs,” must be incorporated into to the
typical vacuum robot may contain as many as five vacuum robot design, to ensure that the cleaning
(or more) motors: process is not interrupted or aborted. Also included

• One motor driving each wheel (two total). in the avoidance category are low-height “wedge”
environments within which the vacuum robot
• One driving the vacuum.
could become caught. Further, wet or flooded
• One driving a spinning side brush, if present.
environments could disable the cleaning mechanism
• One driving the agitator assembly. or electrically damage the unit.
As a result, both effective mapping (discussed
below) and efficient motor-control processing are

Achieving increased functionality and efficiency in vacuum robots 3 January 2018

Technical requirements for must recharge its battery between cleanings, the
vacuum robots unit must be able to determine when a recharge is
required and ensure that sufficient charge remains
Vacuum robot manufacturers must balance the
to communicate with and power the wheel motors
desire for power-efficient operation against the
back to the charging unit. The unit must either
cleaning effectiveness that consumers demand.
“remember” its way back to the base, or it will need
Achieving these often mutually exclusive goals is the
to be able to communicate with the unit to find it.
result of trading off the requirements of the many
Receiving commands from an infrared (IR) remote
interdependent subsystems within a vacuum robot.
control or a consumer’s smartphone, typically
Since many vacuum robot cleaning tasks
through the Internet/Wi-Fi®, requires additional
encompass multiple rooms and exceed the available
communication capabilities.
power of the battery’s capacity, and since the robot

Figure 1: TI vacuum robot reference diagram.

Achieving increased functionality and efficiency in vacuum robots 4 January 2018

The integration of IR and camera-sensing and the entire signal chain while also providing the
mapping information, robot decision-making processor power for vacuum robot operation. These
regarding perimeter and coverage mapping, and solutions include:
obstacle and risk (“cliff”) avoidance increases the • Sitara™ processors. The heart of any
logic programming requirements. One manufacturer vacuum robot control unit is the processor.
claims that one of its vacuum robots can adapt to a The processor interfaces with various sensors,
new input 67 times per second. aggregates and processes data and makes
To address areas that contain an excessive intelligent navigation decisions by driving the
amount of dirt or debris, some vacuum robots motors. Additional functions of the processor
employ “dirt sensors,” which are acoustic impact include connectivity, HMI and voice recognition.
sensors that register vibrations associated with dirt TI’s system-optimized Sitara processors are
and debris colliding with the metal plates of the designed for flexible, fast design in vacuum
sensors. The processor interprets this occurrence robot applications. Based on Arm® Cortex®-A
as one representing a high-dirt area and modifies cores, Sitara processors incorporate a variety
the cleaning map and time spent canvassing the of flexible peripherals, connectivity and unified
area accordingly. software support to cover a wide set of
Considering the multitude of real-time sensor vacuum robot operational requirements and
data and operational feedback, a vacuum robot applications. A broad portfolio of ­
must quickly process a nontrivial amount of data single- and multicore devices provides a
and respond in the most effective manner. This in selection of processor options that offers the
turn puts demands on the processor serving as optimal balance of integration, connectivity and
the “brain.” Correspondingly, as designers add performance for every vacuum robot application
new technologies that increase efficiency and and subsystem. Furthermore, a fully scalable
functionality, the ease of programming such new software platform enables a unified software
features into the control system software platform experience for simplified development and
becomes essential. code migration across all Sitara processors
Finally, the robot itself requires a small form factor and TI digital signal processor (DSP) families.
in order to access remote and low-clearance Pin-compatible options within some of these
areas. A small size and weight will enable the processor families make hardware upgrades
robot to operate for longer periods before needing virtually seamless. See Table 1 on the
to recharge. following page.
Built-in hardware acceleration (cryptographic,
TI enabling technologies for
2-D/3-D graphics and video), native ICSS
vacuum robots
protocol support for more commercial
TI offers a full range of advanced technologies applications and extensive software libraries
that enable the design of flexible and operationally from TI and third parties dramatically reduce
efficient vacuum robots that can operate within the time to market.
complex physical constraints of most residences
TI’s Processor SDK, which provides a common
and commercial enterprises. From sensor input
user interface and software platform for all
to actuator or motor output, TI solutions handle

Achieving increased functionality and efficiency in vacuum robots 5 January 2018

 AM335x processor AM437x processor AM57x processor
Core Arm Cortex-A8 up to 1 GHz Arm Cortex-A9 up to 1 GHz 1 or 2 Arm Cortex-A15s up to 1.5 GHz
1 or 2 C66x DSPs up to 750 MHz
Dhrystone million 2,000 2,500 10,500
instructions per
second (DMIPS) (max)
Multimedia SGX530 SGX530 1 or 2 SGX544 3-Ds, GC320 2-D, high-
definition imaging and video accelerator
(IVA-HD)
Coprocessors Dual-core programmable real-time unit Quad-core PRU-ICSS Quad-core PRU-ICSS, dual-core Arm
subsystem and industrial communication Cortex-M4
subsystem (PRU-ICSS)
Memory Low-power (LP) double-data rate (DDR) LPDDR2/DDR3(L) 1 or 2 32-bit DDR3(L)
1/DDR2/DDR3(L)
OS Linux®, Android™, TI-real-time Linux, TI-RTOS Linux, TI-RTOS, Android
operating system (RTOS)
Key features Liquid crystal display (LCD) controller, Display subsystem, dual camera, Quad Display subsystem, USB 3.0, Serial
Controller Area Network (CAN), gigabit Serial Peripheral Interface (QSPI), gigabit Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA),
Ethernet Media Access Controller (EMAC) EMAC switch, 2 USB with PHY, Enhanced Peripheral Component Interconnect Express
switch, 2 USB with physical layer (PHY), high-resolution PWM (PCIe), video inputs, High-Definition
Enhanced high-resolution PWM Multimedia Interface (HDMI), 3 LCD outputs,
Enhanced high-resolution PWM

Table 1. Sitara processor family features.

Sitara devices, greatly leverages engineering – Multichannel SPI (McSPI)

resource investments across multiple Sitara – Camera Serial Interface (CSI)
Arm-based processor families. Furthermore, – USB 2.0/3.0
where depth cameras are required, TI’s – CAN
Processor SDK also incorporates a voxel – Multichannel Audio Serial Port (McASP)
software development kit (SDK) as one of many – Gigabit Ethernet switching
built-in software components, thereby reducing
– PCIe
the number of diverse software modules
– SATA
requiring integration.
• Core speed:
The variety of general-purpose and industrial
– 300MHz to 1.5GHz
evaluation modules (EVMs)­—combined with
• Core technology:
Processor SDK bring-up, application and
feature-demonstration software—contribute to – Arm Cortex-A8

a productive out-of-box experience. – Arm Cortex-A9

By enabling seamless development on (and – Arm Cortex-A15

across) multiple Sitara and even DSP product – C66x DSP

lines, you have unencumbered options in your Within each family of Sitara processors, you can
choice of TI processor device(s). You can achieve further cost savings by reducing the
choose solutions based on: number of unnecessary features or cores, all
• Peripherals: within common pin-compatible packages.

– SPI

Achieving increased functionality and efficiency in vacuum robots 6 January 2018

 Sitara processors are designed to meet connectivity module family enables developers
industrial requirements for long-term to easily add fully integrated 2.4- and 5-GHz
applications, with extended-temperature-range versions of Wi-Fi and dual-mode Bluetooth®
options, enabling use in both residential and 4.0 solutions to embedded applications.
commercial enterprises. WiLink 8 modules are a good fit for power-
• Proximity sensing. More sophisticated optimized vacuum robot applications. WiLink 8
sensing and mapping operations are enabling modules and software are both compatible
vacuum robots with improved performance and pre-integrated with a wide range of
and efficiency. TI sensing technology solutions processors, including TI’s Sitara processor
for proximity sensing can detect the presence family. Used together, designers have access
of objects in an environment and measure its to a high-performance platform enabling
distance if required. Techniques that TI supports cloud connectivity, high wireless throughput,
for proximity sensing include ultrasonic, integrated dual-mode Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
magnetic capacitance, inductive and time of connectivity, and a unified programming
flight (ToF). experience to control the system. TI Sitara

• 3-D ToF/optical sensing. TI products enable processors also integrate security features

ToF-based sensing to go beyond proximity including secure boot and runtime security,

detection to next-generation machine vision. which are useful to enable secure connectivity.

Improving vacuum robot vision via 3-D ToF • Voice recognition. TI Sitara processors
technology enables the robot to accurately offer voice recognition with integrated DSPs.
detect and recognize objects at a distance, as The DSPs offer excellent voice processing
well as being able to map their environment. capabilities to extract clear speech and audio
The establishment of optimal vacuuming amidst noise and other clutter.

paths optimizes both surface coverage and • Efficient power-supply solutions. TI offers a
vacuuming times, while also avoiding collisions, wide variety of power-management integrated
falls and wedge environments. circuit (PMIC) solutions for various devices,
including low-power options (Table 2 lists
TI’s 3-D ToF chipsets enable maximum flexibility
several) for vacuum robot and other mobile and
to customize designs for robot vision and other
portable applications.
applications. TI tools related to 3-D ToF include
an EVM and a highly configurable camera
Device PMIC
development kit (CDK); the latter provides
TPS65910, TPS65217, TPS650250,
AM335x
3-D locations of each pixel for accurate depth TPS65218
and distance maps that aid customization for AM437x,
TPS65218
AM438x
efficient vacuum robot “terrain” coverage. Sitara
AM572x TPS659037x
(AMxxxx)
• Connectivity solutions. TI offers solutions
AM571x TPS659037x, TPS65916
for integrating communication capabilities
AM570x LP8733, LP8732, TPS65916
for its processors. The TI WiLink™ 8 combo
Table 2. Power solutions for Sitara devices.

Achieving increased functionality and efficiency in vacuum robots 7 January 2018

Building better, more efficient provide the complete solutions that vacuum robot
vacuum robots for residences and developers require and demand. TI supports its
commercial enterprises semiconductor and IC products with software
tools, EVMs, reference designs and other avenues
As technology advances and continues to expand
of support that help speed time to market,
the performance and efficiencies of vacuum robots,
thus making the process of designing and
their presence and ubiquity in residences and
delivering vacuum robots more responsive, timely
commercial enterprises will expand as well. The
and profitable.
increased capability demands fueling this growth
will compel vacuum robot developers to look for As vacuum robots are improving the quality of life
solutions that will enable them to deliver accurate, for consumers and businesses, TI is helping the
efficient, safe and cost-effective operation for developers of these products continually improve
their products. them and enhance their effectiveness.

TI’s IC products for sensing, signaling, processing,

communications and power management

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