Laundry Delivery Robots
Apartment buildings of the future may be equipped with a variety of apartment service robots, including robots designed to pick up your laundry.
In the future, large apartment buildings may have several different types of robots traveling through their hallways. The robots are called apartment service robots. One type of apartment service robot is the laundry delivery robot. The laundry delivery robot is designed for use in an apartment building with a central laundry room. The people who live in the apartment building will not need to carry their clothes to the laundry room, because the robot will handle that task for them. A tenant who wants the robot to come to his apartment and pick up his clothes only has to call the laundry staff on the telephone, and tell him he wants his clothes picked up. The laundry attendant asks him his apartment number, and the robot is sent on it's way.
The laundry delivery robot is basically a self-propelled robot that has four wheels, and is powered by batteries. The batteries provide power to the robot's electric motor. The robot has a machine-vision system, that is basically a computer connected to a camera. The camera detects obstacles, and feeds the visual data to the computer, so the computer can steer the robot around the obstacles. If the computer calculates that the obstacle cannot be avoided by steering, the computer will cause the robot to stop or back up. The robot can enter elevators, to reach the upper floors of the apartment b building. When the robot reaches the apartment where it was requested, it rings a bell. When the tenant hears the bell, he opens his door, and allows the robot to come inside his apartment. After the robot is inside, the robot opens it's lid and the tenant puts his dirty laundry into the robot. After the robot is loaded with the dirty laundry, the robot closes it's lid and leaves. The robot takes the laundry to the laundry room, where the laundry room attendant washes it. After the laundry is finished, the laundry room attendant places the clean laundry into the robot, and sends the robot back to the same apartment. The tenant removes the clothing from the robot, and after the clothing is removed, the robot automatically leaves, and returns to the laundry room. This is typical of the convenience that that can be achieved in an apartment building with laundry service robots.
Anthony Ratkov, October 23,2012.
