CN116803240A - Intelligent lawn mowing system and self-moving equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

The application discloses an intelligent mowing system and self-moving equipment, wherein the system comprises a working area limited by a boundary line and the intelligent mowing equipment, and further comprises: the positioning module is used for acquiring coordinate information of the mowing equipment on the boundary line or in the working area, wherein the coordinate information comprises position information and attitude information; the positioning module at least comprises an RTK positioning unit and a plurality of fusion positioning units; when the RTK positioning unit has a fixed solution, marking position information by adopting the RTK positioning unit and marking attitude information by adopting the first fusion positioning unit; when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution, marking position information by adopting a second fusion positioning unit and marking attitude information by adopting a third fusion positioning unit; the control module is at least connected with the positioning module to control the positioning module to switch different positioning units to acquire coordinate information; the map building module is used for building a boundary map according to the position information and the gesture information; and the path planning module is used for planning the running path of the intelligent mowing equipment based on the boundary map.

Description

Intelligent mowing system and self-moving equipment

Technical Field

The application relates to the field of intelligent working machines, in particular to an intelligent mowing system and self-moving equipment.

Background

With the development of mobile robot technology, more and more robots have been put into daily life in recent years. Intelligent mowing robots capable of automatically mowing, automatically recharging and automatically avoiding obstacles in a user lawn are also gradually spreading as self-moving equipment. The intelligent mowing robot can relieve users from heavy and boring households such as cleaning and maintaining lawns, and is more and more favored by users. As a self-moving intelligent robot, the positioning accuracy determines the quality of the operation effect of equipment.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to solve the defects of the prior art, the application aims to provide an intelligent mower capable of realizing accurate positioning, map building and navigation by combining a plurality of positioning technologies.

In order to achieve the above object, the present application adopts the following technical scheme:

an intelligent mowing system comprising a working area defined by a boundary line and an intelligent mowing apparatus, further comprising: the positioning module is used for acquiring coordinate information of the intelligent mowing equipment on the boundary line or in the working area, wherein the coordinate information comprises position information and gesture information; the positioning module at least comprises an RTK positioning unit and a plurality of fusion positioning units; when the RTK positioning unit has a fixed solution, marking the position information by adopting the RTK positioning unit and marking the gesture information by adopting a first fusion positioning unit; when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution, marking the position information by adopting a second fusion positioning unit and marking the gesture information by adopting a third fusion positioning unit; the control module is at least connected with the positioning module to control the positioning module to switch different positioning units to acquire the coordinate information; the map building module is used for building a boundary map according to the position information and the gesture information; and the path planning module is used for planning the running path of the intelligent mowing equipment based on the boundary map.

Further, the first fusion positioning unit, the second fusion positioning unit or the third fusion positioning unit comprises at least two of a vision sensor, a laser radar, an IMU and an odometer.

Further, the control module is configured to: and carrying out regional division on the working region to obtain a plurality of first sub-working regions, and controlling the laser radar to acquire sub-region point cloud data in each first sub-working region.

Further, the control module is configured to control the intelligent mowing device to mow in the working area according to the running path and the sub-area point cloud data.

Further, the path planning module plans the direction of the direction edge of the running path according to the coordinate information recorded by the positioning module when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution.

Further, the mapping module is configured to fit at least one section of boundary line curve according to coordinate information recorded by the positioning module when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution; the included angle between the direction of the direction edge and the tangential direction of the midpoint of the longest boundary line curve is more than or equal to 45 degrees and less than or equal to 135 degrees.

Further, the path planning module is further configured to divide the boundary map into a plurality of sub-boundary maps according to the convexity of the boundary map or island boundaries in the boundary map, where each sub-boundary map corresponds to a second sub-working area; and planning a running path of the intelligent mowing equipment in the second sub-working area based on the sub-boundary map.

A self-moving device that operates within an operating area surrounded by a boundary line, the self-moving device comprising: the positioning module is used for acquiring coordinate information of the self-mobile equipment on the boundary line or in the working area, wherein the coordinate information comprises position information and gesture information; the positioning module at least comprises an RTK positioning unit and a plurality of fusion positioning units; when the RTK positioning unit has a fixed solution, marking the position information by adopting the RTK positioning unit and marking the gesture information by adopting a first fusion positioning unit; when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution, marking the position information by adopting a second fusion positioning unit and marking the gesture information by adopting a third fusion positioning unit; the control module is at least connected with the positioning module to control the positioning module to switch different positioning units to acquire the coordinate information; the map building module is used for building a boundary map according to the position information and the gesture information; and the path planning module is used for planning the running path of the self-mobile equipment based on the boundary map.

Further, the first fusion positioning unit, the second fusion positioning unit or the third fusion positioning unit comprises at least two of a vision sensor, a laser radar, an IMU and an odometer.

Further, the path planning module plans the direction of the direction edge of the running path according to the coordinate information recorded by the positioning module when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a smart mower working system as one embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a mower as one embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a circuit block diagram of a smart mower working system as one embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a first sub-work area division schematic diagram, as one embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a path planning direction edge direction, as one embodiment;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of boundary map asperity as one embodiment;

FIG. 7 is a second sub-work area division schematic diagram as one embodiment;

fig. 8 is a second sub-operation area division schematic diagram as one embodiment.

Description of the embodiments

The application is described in detail below with reference to the drawings and the specific embodiments. It is to be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the application and are not limiting thereof. It should be further noted that, for convenience of description, only some, but not all of the structures related to the present application are shown in the drawings.

The technical scheme of the application is suitable for intelligent mowing equipment, automatic cleaning equipment, automatic irrigation equipment, automatic snowplow and other equipment suitable for unattended operation, and other types of self-moving equipment which can adopt the essence of the technical scheme disclosed below can fall within the protection scope of the application. The application mainly aims at intelligent mowers, namely mowers for short. It can be understood that, for different self-moving devices, different working accessories can be adopted, and different functional accessories correspond to different action modes.

Referring to fig. 1, a mowing system is shown, including a boundary line 100, a work area 200, a charging stake 300, and a mower 400. The charging pile 300 is used for stopping the mower, in particular for supplementing energy when the power supply is insufficient, and the charging pile 300 is usually arranged on the boundary line 100 or in the working area 200. The boundary line 100 is used to define a working area 200 of the mower, and the boundary line 100 is typically joined end to enclose the working area 200. In the application, the working area can be an irregular closed figure or a regular closed figure. In one embodiment, the boundary line 100 may also be used to define a non-working area, the shape of which is related to the size, shape, etc. of the obstacle therein.

In one embodiment, the boundary line 100 may be formed by a solid object, such as a fence, rail, wall, etc., which may form a solid boundary; the non-solid boundary line may be constituted by an electromagnetic signal or an optical signal emitted from a wire, a signal emitting device, or the like.

As shown in fig. 2 and 3, the mowing system may further include a power device 10, a positioning module 20, a control module 30, a mapping module 40, and a path planning module 50. In one embodiment, the modules described above may be provided within the mower 400, or may be provided on other devices that are removably or non-removably secured to the mower 400. In this embodiment, the modules described above are disposed within mower 400. The mower 400 includes at least a housing 401, a cutter blade 402 provided below the mower body, a driving wheel 403, and a driving motor 404 for controlling the driving wheel 403 to travel. It will be appreciated that mower 400 also includes a cutting motor (not shown) driving cutting blade 402. The control module 10 controls the drive wheel 403 and the cutting blade 402 by controlling the drive motor and the cutting motor, respectively.

The power supply device 10 is used for supplying power to the driving motor and the cutting motor, and supplying power voltages to the unit modules such as the positioning module 20, the control module 30, the mapping module 40, the path planning module 50 and the like. Alternatively, the power supply device 10 may be a dc power supply battery pack, or may be ac mains, which is not limited herein.

The positioning module 20 is configured to acquire coordinate information of the mower 400 on the boundary line 100 or in the working area 200. The coordinate information therein may include position information and attitude information of the mower 400. The so-called position information may be a position coordinate of the mower 400 in a world coordinate system, and the posture information may be a posture coordinate of the mower 400 in a posture coordinate system. The position coordinates of mower 400 in the world coordinate system may be the coordinates of the center of the mower's two-wheel hitch.

In one embodiment, the positioning module 20 may include at least a positioning unit capable of implementing a real-time dynamic differential positioning technique (Real Time Kinematic, RTK), an RTK positioning unit 201 for short, and a plurality of fusion positioning units 202. The fused positioning unit 202 may be a positioning unit that can be fused with at least two positioning techniques to position the mower 400. Illustratively, the fusion positioning unit 202 can fuse the RTK positioning technique and the lidar positioning technique to obtain coordinate information of the mower 400.

The control module 30 can be connected with the positioning module 20 at least, and can control the positioning module 20 to adopt different positioning units for positioning according to different positioning environments or positioning scenes.

The mapping module 40 can construct a boundary map of the working area 200 according to the position information and the posture information of the mower 400 positioned by the positioning module 20. The boundary map may be understood as a map for the boundary of the work area 200 formed by the boundary line 100 by one round of the work area 200 end to end. In this embodiment, the starting point of the mower 400 along the boundary line 100 may be the charging post 300 or other feature object disposed on the boundary line.

In one embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, there may be a non-working area 500 inside the working area 200. In order to prevent the mower 400 from entering the non-working area, the same boundary line as the boundary line 100 is generally used, and the non-working area 500 is surrounded by being connected end to end and enclosed in the boundary line. In one embodiment, the mapping module 40 may establish the boundary line map based on the boundary line of the non-working area 500 and the boundary line of the working area 200. The boundary in the boundary map is composed of two independent boundary lines, i.e., an inner boundary line, and an outer boundary line, i.e., a boundary line of the non-operation area 500 and a boundary line of the operation area 200. Mower 400 may operate within a work area that is enclosed by both an inner boundary line and an outer boundary line.

The path planning module 50 may plan the travel path of the mower 400 in the work area 200 according to the boundary map. The travel path may include, among other things, a direction of a directional side of the mower 400 when walking within the work area 200, a steering of the mower 400 when encountering a boundary line, and the like.

As the mower is self-moving equipment for outdoor work, the positioning accuracy of the outdoor RTK positioning mode is higher, and the positioning requirement of the mower can be generally met. However, when signal transmission between the base station and the device is blocked, the RTK positioning accuracy may be affected. To solve this problem, the present application incorporates other positioning methods based on the use of RTK positioning by the mower 400.

In one embodiment, the control module 30 may switch different positioning unit acquisition coordinate information depending on the type of RTK positioning unit 201 solution. Wherein the types of RTK solutions may include fixed solutions and non-fixed solutions. The fixed-solution RTK positioning unit 201 has positioning coordinates with accuracy up to the centimeter level; the positioning coordinates of the RTK positioning unit 201 under the unfixed solution are floating, and the positioning is inaccurate.

In one embodiment, when the RTK positioning unit 201 has a fixed solution, the RTK positioning accuracy is not affected, and the control module 30 may control the RTK positioning unit 201 to mark the position information of the mower 400 and control the first fusion positioning unit 202a to mark the pose information of the mower 400. In the present embodiment, the RTK positioning unit 201 positions the position coordinates of the mower 400 to be (x 1, y1, z 1), and the attitude coordinates of the mower 400 marked by the first fusion positioning unit 202a include (θ1, Φ1, γ1), where θ1 represents an absolute heading angle, Φ1 represents a roll angle, and γ1 represents a pitch angle. For example, the first fused positioning unit 202a may fuse several positioning methods such as an odometer, a lidar, an RTK, and an inertial measurement unit (Inertial Measurement Unit, IMU). For example, θ1 is an absolute heading angle obtained by integrating an odometer and a laser radar and an ICP algorithm is adopted for the track integrated with an RTK track, Φ1 and γ1 may be obtained by integrating an IMU accelerometer and a gyroscope, and in this embodiment, a visual sensor may be integrated in the RTK positioning unit 201 or the first integrated positioning unit 202a to identify the boundary line 100, so as to ensure that the mower 400 is prevented from driving out of the boundary line 100 or the working area 200.

In one embodiment, when the RTK positioning unit 201 has an unfixed solution, the RTK positioning accuracy is impaired, and the control module 30 may control the second fusion positioning unit 202b to mark the position information of the mower 400 and control the third fusion positioning unit 202c to mark the pose information of the mower 400. In the present embodiment, the second fusion positioning unit 202b positions the mower 400 at the position coordinates (x 2, y2, z 2), and the pose coordinates of the mower 400 marked by the third fusion positioning unit 202c include (θ2, Φ2, γ2). Where θ2 represents the sum of the absolute heading angle θ1 marked by the first fused positioning unit 202a and the fused delta angle when switching from the RTK positioning unit 201 to the second fused positioning unit 202b, Φ represents the roll angle, γ represents the pitch angle. For example, the second fusion positioning unit 202b may fuse at least two of a vision sensor, a laser radar, an IMU, an odometer. The third fused locating unit 202c may be at least one of a vision sensor, a laser radar, an IMU, an odometer, for example, an IUM. In the present embodiment, a visual sensor may be integrated in the second integrated positioning unit 202b or the third integrated positioning unit 202c to identify the boundary line 100, thereby ensuring that the mower 400 is prevented from exiting the boundary line 100 or the work area 200.

Referring to fig. 4, in the process of establishing the boundary map by the mapping module 40 according to the coordinate information, the control module 30 may perform area division on the working area 200 to obtain a plurality of first sub-working areas 210, and control the mower 400 to obtain the point cloud data of the sub-areas in each of the first sub-working areas 210 by using the laser radar. In one implementation, the first sub-working area 210 may be divided into sections centered on the mower 400, where the laser radar covers the entire first sub-working area 210 without moving the mower 400. Illustratively, the first sub-working area 210 may be a square area, half of the square length being less than or equal to the radius of the laser radar coverage area, or a circular area, the radius of which is less than or equal to the radius of the laser radar coverage area.

In one embodiment, the mapping module 40 may create a point cloud map, i.e., a region map of the work area 200, according to the point cloud data of each first sub-work area 210.

After mapping, control module 30 may control mower 400 to travel mower along a planned travel path within work area 200. In one embodiment, control module 30 may position itself based on the point cloud map during control of travel of mower 400 according to the travel path, avoiding deviations from the travel path.

In one embodiment, the mower 400 may further include a storage module for storing coordinate information located by the location module 20. For example, coordinate information of the mower 400 may be stored when the RTK positioning unit 201 has an unfixed solution.

In an embodiment of the application, when the path planning module 50 plans the running path, the direction of the directional edge of the running path may be planned according to the coordinate information recorded by the positioning module 20 when the RTK positioning unit 201 has an unfixed solution. Thus, the mower 400 can be prevented from running along the direction of the area with the non-fixed solution of the RTK positioning unit 201 for a long time due to improper path planning, and inaccurate positioning is caused.

In one implementation, mapping module 40 may determine the direction of the directional edge in conjunction with path planning module 50. Referring to fig. 5, the border line map bold portion is that the RTK positioning unit 201 has a non-stationary solution border area. The mapping module 40 may fit at least one section of boundary line curve L, i.e. the thickened portion in fig. 5, according to the coordinate information recorded by the positioning module 20 when the RTK positioning unit 201 has an unfixed solution. Further, the path planning module 50 may plan the direction of the direction edge Ld according to the midpoint tangent direction of the longest boundary line curve Lmax so that an angle between the direction of the direction edge and the midpoint tangent direction of the longest boundary line curve is greater than or equal to 45 ° and less than or equal to 135 °. In one embodiment, the angle β between the direction of the direction edge Ld and the direction of the midpoint tangent Lt of the longest borderline curve Lmax is 90 °, i.e. the direction of the midpoint normal of the longest borderline curve Lmax is the direction of the direction edge Ld, as shown in fig. 5. It is understood that any other method of determining the direction of the direction edges that avoids long-term coincidence or substantial coincidence of the travel path with the boundary region of the RTK positioning unit 201 having a non-stationary solution is within the scope of the present application.

In one embodiment, the boundary line curves or curves, or islands as shown in fig. 1 are present, since most of the working area is an irregular polygon. Thus, the boundary line map has a certain convexity. The path planning module 50 may divide the boundary map into a plurality of sub-boundary maps according to the concave-convex property of the boundary map or island boundaries in the boundary map, and each sub-boundary map corresponds to one of the second sub-working areas 220. And may then plan the path of travel of mower 400 within second sub-work area 220 based on the sub-boundary map. For a specific path planning method, reference may be made to the description in the foregoing embodiments, and details are not repeated here.

In one embodiment, the path planning unit 50 may first determine the convexity of the boundary map. By way of example, the boundary map may be divided into n curve segments of length x, thereby constructing an n-sided polygon 110, as shown in FIG. 6. The value of the length x may be 1m,1.5m or, depending on the total length of the boundary line. Further, the angle of each internal angle of the n-sided polygon may be calculated in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, with convex edges if the angle is less than or equal to 180 ° and concave edges if it is greater than 180 °.

For the convex edge shape, if no island exists in the working area, the arc-shaped running path shown in fig. 5 can be planned after the direction of the direction edge is selected according to the road strength planning method. Allowing mower 400 to cut grass in the entire work area along the path described above, eventually mowing along the border line and returning to the charging stake. If the island shown in fig. 7 exists in the working area, the entire working area may be divided into a plurality of second sub-working areas 220 by two lines tangent to the boundary line of the non-working area 500 and intersecting the boundary line of the working area 200. Further, the working path of each second sub-working area 220 is planned according to the path planning method described above.

For the concave edge, referring to fig. 8, two end points of the concave edge La may be connected to form a straight line and have only one intersection with the concave edge by translation, so that the straight line can divide the concave deformed map into a plurality of convex second sub-working areas 220. Further, the working path of each second sub-working area 220 is planned according to the path planning method described above.

It should be noted that any other method for dividing the second sub-working area 220 by determining the concave-convex shape is within the scope of the present application.

Note that the above is only a preferred embodiment of the present application and the technical principle applied. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present application is not limited to the particular embodiments described herein, but is capable of various obvious changes, rearrangements and substitutions as will now become apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the application. Therefore, while the application has been described in connection with the above embodiments, the application is not limited to the embodiments, but may be embodied in many other equivalent forms without departing from the spirit or scope of the application, which is set forth in the following claims.

Claims (10)

1. An intelligent mowing system comprises a working area limited by a boundary line and intelligent mowing equipment,

further comprises:

the positioning module is used for acquiring coordinate information of the intelligent mowing equipment on the boundary line or in the working area, wherein the coordinate information comprises position information and gesture information;

the positioning module at least comprises an RTK positioning unit and a plurality of fusion positioning units;

when the RTK positioning unit has a fixed solution, marking the position information by adopting the RTK positioning unit and marking the gesture information by adopting a first fusion positioning unit;

when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution, marking the position information by adopting a second fusion positioning unit and marking the gesture information by adopting a third fusion positioning unit;

the control module is at least connected with the positioning module to control the positioning module to switch different positioning units to acquire the coordinate information;

the map building module is used for building a boundary map according to the position information and the gesture information;

and the path planning module is used for planning the running path of the intelligent mowing equipment based on the boundary map.

2. The intelligent mowing system according to claim 1, wherein,

the first fusion positioning unit, the second fusion positioning unit or the third fusion positioning unit comprises at least two of a visual sensor, a laser radar, an IMU and an odometer.

3. The intelligent mowing system according to claim 2, wherein,

the control module is configured to:

and carrying out regional division on the working region to obtain a plurality of first sub-working regions, and controlling the laser radar to acquire sub-region point cloud data in each first sub-working region.

4. The intelligent mowing system according to claim 3, wherein,

the control module is configured to control the intelligent mowing equipment to mow in the working area according to the running path and the sub-area point cloud data.

5. The intelligent mowing system according to claim 1, wherein,

and the path planning module plans the direction of the direction edge of the running path according to the coordinate information recorded by the positioning module when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution.

6. The intelligent mowing system according to claim 5, wherein,

the mapping module is used for fitting out at least one section of boundary line curve according to the coordinate information recorded by the positioning module when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution;

the included angle between the direction of the direction edge and the tangential direction of the midpoint of the longest boundary line curve is more than or equal to 45 degrees and less than or equal to 135 degrees.

7. The intelligent mowing system according to claim 1, wherein,

the path planning module is further configured to divide the boundary map into a plurality of sub-boundary maps according to the convexity of the boundary map or island boundaries in the boundary map, where each sub-boundary map corresponds to a second sub-working area; the method comprises the steps of,

and planning a running path of the intelligent mowing equipment in the second sub-working area based on the sub-boundary map.

8. A self-moving device that operates within an operating area surrounded by a boundary line, the self-moving device comprising:

the positioning module is used for acquiring coordinate information of the self-mobile equipment on the boundary line or in the working area, wherein the coordinate information comprises position information and gesture information;

the positioning module at least comprises an RTK positioning unit and a plurality of fusion positioning units;

when the RTK positioning unit has a fixed solution, marking the position information by adopting the RTK positioning unit and marking the gesture information by adopting a first fusion positioning unit;

when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution, marking the position information by adopting a second fusion positioning unit and marking the gesture information by adopting a third fusion positioning unit;

the control module is at least connected with the positioning module to control the positioning module to switch different positioning units to acquire the coordinate information;

the map building module is used for building a boundary map according to the position information and the gesture information;

and the path planning module is used for planning the running path of the self-mobile equipment based on the boundary map.

9. The self-mobile device of claim 8, wherein the self-mobile device comprises a base,

the first fusion positioning unit, the second fusion positioning unit or the third fusion positioning unit comprises at least two of a visual sensor, a laser radar, an IMU and an odometer.

10. The self-mobile device of claim 8, wherein the self-mobile device comprises a base,

and the path planning module plans the direction of the direction edge of the running path according to the coordinate information recorded by the positioning module when the RTK positioning unit has an unfixed solution.