Optimization of Floor Cleaning Coverage Performance of a Random Path-Planning Mobile Robot

Floor cleaning is a typical mobile robot application. Most commercial cleaning mobile robots designed for domestic applications use random path-planning algorithms and very few sensors and the critical problem is to decide when the cleaning is already finished or the coverage completed. In this work, we have simulated and modeled the evolution of the area cleaned by the robot and demonstrate it can be estimated if the size of the area is known, we have proposed some methods to estimate the size of the cleaning area using only the information of encoders and collision detectors. To this end, three typical rooms have been tested with and without furniture. Results show the great influence of furniture distribution in the estimation of the cleaning area of the room.