Vorwerk's Smart Carpet: Intelligent Carpet Directs Robot Vacuum

Vorwerks Smart Carpet Intelligent Carpet Directs Robot Vacuum
Robotic vacuum cleaners automatically sweep up messes, but the random path they travel across the floor can sometimes leave dirt untouched.

Now the manufacturing company Vorwerk in Hamlin, Germany, has partnered with Infineon in Munich to develop an electronic carpet that wirelessly navigates a self-propelled robot over every square inch of a floor, and can even direct the machine to revisit sections it unintentionally missed.

"The robot can easily store or remember the path he didn't clean so far and try later," said Christl Lauterbach, senior staff engineer and project manager at Infineon who conceived of the so-called Smart Carpet.

The system uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, similar to that found in the automatic pay lanes of highway toll booths.

Foil-thin RFID tags approximately 1.5 inches square are imbedded in a grid pattern to the back of carpeting. Each tag is equipped with an antenna coil and a silicon microchip that contains a unique identification number.

The prototype robot, a round unit about 13 inches in diameter and 5 1/2 inches tall, contains an RFID reader and a computerized map of the grid area that details the location of each RFID tag.

As the self-propelled robot moves over the carpet, the reader locates the imbedded tags, which wirelessly transmit their location.