Autonomous carriers or totes that include vacuum units are provided. As the totes move or are moved through a warehouse carrying products, they collect debris. The debris can be analyzed at the tote, and actions can be performed based upon the analysis.

A system providing a barrier for an autonomous floor cleaner includes an artificial barrier generator that radiates one or more infrared signals. An autonomous floor cleaner can be configured to detect the infrared signals, and can react by altering course. Methods for containing an autonomous floor cleaner within a user-determined boundary are disclosed.

A method of operating a mobile cleaning robot can include receiving a privacy mode setting from a user interface, where the privacy mode setting is based on a user selection between at least two different privacy mode settings for determining whether to operate the mobile cleaning robot in an image-capture-restricted mode. An image stream of an image capture device of the mobile cleaning robot is permitted in an absence of a user-selection of a more restrictive one of the privacy settings. At least a portion of the image stream is restricted or disabled based at least in part on a user-selection of a more restrictive one of the privacy settings.

A method for controlling a suction device, in which the suction device includes at least one electric motor at least for generating a suction function, includes at least detecting vibration data on a suction hose of the suction device, evaluating the vibration data by comparing it with comparison data and generating a comparison result, and controlling the electric motor in accordance with the comparison result.

Disclosed are a cleaning apparatus and a control method thereof. A cleaning apparatus according to the present specification, comprising a cleaning module and a main body, comprises: a motor for suctioning air outside the cleaning apparatus; a sensor which is included in the cleaning module and detects a facing distance between the cleaning module and a facing surface while the motor is operating; and a processor which controls the output of the motor on the basis of the facing distance. Thus, even without an additional operation by the user, it is possible to pre-emptively protect a user from injury by a brush that rotates while externally exposed, on the basis of the distance between the cleaning module and the floor surface.

Provided is a method for controlling a robot cleaner including a first operation of identifying that a manual cleaner and the robot cleaner are turned on, a second operation of identifying, by the robot cleaner, a location of the manual cleaner, a third operation of separating cleaning regions for performing cleaning therein from each other, and a fourth operation of starting, by the robot cleaner, cleaning of a corresponding region after the manual cleaner completes cleaning of the corresponding region.

A vacuum machine comprising: a housing for receiving vacuumed matter and at least two removably attachable accessories; sensing means for detecting the accessories; a control circuit communicatively coupled with the sensing means; the sensing means being arranged to generate a first signal to the control circuit representative of the presence of a first accessory, a second signal representative of the presence of two accessories, the control circuit being arranged to preventing operation of the vacuum machine when the first signal is received and to allow operation of the vacuum machine when the second signal.

A mobile cleaning robot that includes a drive system configured to navigate around an operational environment, a ranging device configured to communicate with other ranging devices of respective electronic devices that are in the operational environment, and processors in communication with the ranging device that are configured to receive a distance measurement from the respective electronic devices present in the operational environment, each distance measurement representing a distance between the mobile cleaning robot and a respective electronic device, tag each of the distance measurements with location data indicative of a spatial location of the mobile cleaning robot in the operational environment, determine spatial locations of each of the electronic devices in the operational environment, and populate a visual representation of the operating environment with visual indications of the electronic devices in the operating environment.

An air cleaner disposed in an indoor space is disclosed. The air cleaner according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a blowing device including a suction port and a discharging port, a fan motor configured to cause air flow, a purification unit installed in the blowing device to clean air, a flow conversion configured to change a flow direction of air discharged from the discharging port, a communication unit configured to communicate with a moving agent moving in the indoor space, and a processor configured to receive feature information collected by the moving agent and associated with a structure of the indoor space, obtain a type of the indoor space by using the feature information, and control an operation of at least one of the fan motor and the flow conversion device by using the type of the indoor space to adjust at least one of an operation mode, a wind direction, and a wind volume.

The present invention relates to an autonomously operable vacuum cleaner that has a modular design. The vacuum cleaner in this respect comprises a cleaning head module as well as a separate canister module. The cleaning head module and the canister module are in this respect connected to one another via a hose so that dust sucked in via the cleaning head module can be conveyed into the canister module.