Future Direction For Household Cleaning Robots

The near future of household cleaning robots will strive to improve the limitations associated with current models. The improvements will create a class of robots that can efficiently navigate around the house and automatically perform household cleaning tasks without user intervention. As time progresses, household robot manufacturers will have two new goals to achieve.  The first being an attempt to unify all household cleaning chores into one universal and truly intelligent robot; the second being to build household cleaning robots that can easily integrate into peoples' lifestyles.

Development of Household Cleaning Robots in the Near Future
Within 10 Years

First and foremost, great improvement must be made by the current household robotics industry.  Today's household cleaning robots represent little more than vacuums with motorized wheels that randomly run around the house. In the near future, however, manufacturers will improve the intelligence of these machines and increase their perception of the environment around them.

The processing power of the machines must be increased. Robots cannot run randomly around the house for hours expecting that they will eventually clean the entire room. Such a process is a waste of both time and energy [3]. Rather, the robot needs to know to a certain extent, precisely where it is located relative to the walls of a room (or the edges of a table) and develop an efficient plan of how to go about cleaning the area [6]. This way, the robot can maximize its time and battery life to provide the best cleaning. A faster processor and better algorithms need to be developed and installed on the robot.

In combination with increasing processing power, visual processing capabilities demand advancement. Stereo cameras should be installed on robots to allow them to perceive their environment. When people are asked to clean a table or vacuum the floor, they will subconsciously take a mental picture of the environment they have to clean and develop a mental plan based on the mental picture. Robots, therefore, require the fundamental ability to have a visual concept of the surrounding environment in order for their program to develop the most efficient plan. Without some type of visual sensors, the robot will be like a blind genius, thinking without the capability for action.

Finally, these robots will need the ability to maneuver household objects, something along the line of a robotic arm [6]. For example, consider an intelligent table-cleaning robot is about to clean and sanitize the counter-top. However, Junior, who is five-years-old, likes to scatter his toys on the counter. When the table cleaning robot runs into scattered toys, it will first try to push them. Due to the large number of scattered toys, however, just pushing them will eventually create a huge pile and impede the movement of the robot. If the robot were to be equipped with a robotic arm, it would be able to grab and remove the toys off the table and continue with the cleaning [7].

Together, these basic abilities will make household cleaning robots better at performing their duties.

Goals to Strive For in the Far Future
10 Years and Beyond

With the basic abilities implemented, developers will eventually have to find ways that will make household cleaning robots more attractive to the consumers. One way is combining the functionalities of the robot.

Sometime in the future, people will have many cleaning robots in their house because of their ease of use. As people have more robots in their household, it will become a hassle as the machines crowd up the living space. For this reason, developers will have to create universal robots which will accomplish a variety of tasks and are contained in a relatively small space [6]. Such universal household robots will replace the variety of machines required to perform different household cleaning chores. This type of robot will have an extensive database containing facts regarding how to sanitize the living area. With this type of knowledge and well developed artificial intelligence these robots will be able to ensure that the house is in its cleanest state, thus protecting humans from getting sick in their home. This new generation of cleaning robots will be more efficient than humans in sanitizing houses because they have a well-developed artificial intelligence system that is mainly dedicated to cleaning the house. In addition, they will be equipped with top-of-the-line processors to power the artificial intelligence software. Humans, on the other hand, cannot completely dedicate themselves to cleaning the house because they would go mad!

The second trend that will likely take place is the integration of cleaning robots with the lifestyle of its owner. The robot will try to learn the pattern of its owner’s lifestyle and consequently adjust so as to not interfere. For example, Sam works from 9 AM to 5 PM. When he comes home, he spends 5 hours eating and doing other things then goes to sleep around 11 PM.  Sam’s robot will, after a few days in the man’s house, analyze his pattern of activity and determines that it should refrain from cleaning the house from 5 PM. to 11 PM., as Sam is home during those hours. Rather, during the daytime when the owner is away at work, it should do vacuuming and other noisy chores, leaving the quiet chores for the night, when Sam is asleep.