Patent · US Active

Trainable autonomous lawn mower

US9137943B2 · kind B2 · utility

49Cited by

4References

21Claims

0Family size

Assignee

Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH · DE

Inventors

Nils Einecke · Offenbach, DE
Mathias Franzius · Offenbach am Main, DE
Heiko Wersing · Frankfurt, DE

Key dates

Filing date	Jul 26, 2013
Grant date	Sep 22, 2015
Priority date	—
Expiry date	Oct 3, 2033

Classification

Technology area (CPC G)Physics
CPC primaryG06V20/10
WIPO fieldOther special machines
WIPO sectorMechanical engineering

Abstract

The present invention proposes a profound user-mower interaction, which enables the user to teach a robotic lawn mower for improving its visual obstacle detection. The main idea of the invention is that the user can show some typical obstacles from his garden to the mower. This will increases the performance of the visual obstacle detection. In the simplest scenario the user just places the mower in front of an obstacle, and activates the learning mechanism of the classification means (module) of the mower. The increasing use of smart devices such as smart phones or tablets enables also more elaborated learning. For example, the mower can send the input image to the smart device, and the user can provide a detailed annotation of the image. This will drastically improve the learning, because the mower is provided with ground truth information.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.