A practical path planner for the robotic vacuum cleaner in rectilinear environments

In this paper, we propose a path planner for a Robotic Vacuum Cleaner (RVC). In the design of the planner, we consider two main issues: (1) human-friendly path generation and (2) low computational load. First, we analyze how human move and suggest a hypothesis that human navigate in a way that minimizes the sum of muscle and brain energy. By imitating the human path, we propose a humanfriendly path planner. Also, the designed planner requires a low amount of computations which not only extends the battery running time but also decreases the hardware cost of the RVC. Experimental results show that the proposed path gives a more favorable impression to customers than conventional paths. Index Terms--Robotic vacuum cleaner, human-friendly path, motion planning, rectilinear environment.