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Vorwerk presents RFID "smart floor" at the CeBIT!
Vorwerk Teppichwerke is opening up completely new dimensions for ultra modern building management with the world's first textile underlay for automated robot control. Carpets and other floor coverings will now become a navigation system.
Hamlin, March 2006 - After over three years of targeted research, Vorwerk Teppichwerke from Hamlin, Germany has successfully developed the first "smart floor" to series-production capability. A textile underlay, the "smart floor" is equipped with electronic Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) microchips and can be installed beneath nearly all suitable floor coverings. As a result of the information stored on the chips, RFID robots are able to orientate themselves precisely towards targets on the flooring area, for example to take over automated cleaning or transport functions in buildings. "Besides its significance as a design element, the additional use of the floor surface area in buildings has been at best confined to ventilation, heating and as the optical blind for cable and installation ducts", according to Johannes Schulte, chairman of executive management at Vorwerk Teppichwerke. "With the 'smart floor' that area is now going to be given a whole new technical functionality. A milestone for advanced floor-covering solutions." "Smart floor" is the first product to be realised from the ongoing research project "thinking carpet" begun in 2003. That project has been run by Vorwerk jointly with chip manufacturer Infineon towards developing intelligent supplementary functions for textile floor coverings. With the firm InMach Intelligente Maschinen GmbH from Ulm, Germany, a first co-operation partner has now been found. InMach specially designs intelligent robots for everyday service tasks such as
cleaning work or transporting goods and persons. Effective immediately, Vorwerk and InMach are managing the advanced development of a marketable overall solution that envisages "smart floor" together with an RFID service robot.
The "smart floor" principle
The basis of the "smart floor" is a network consisting of RFID microchip "tags" which have been integrated into a polyester weave. This construction enables a trouble-free linkage of multiple underlays so that the RFID network can be installed in a space to cover any size. The "smart floor" can be installed easily and invisibly beneath any suitable floor covering, for example a carpet. Each RFID tag within the network can be electromagnetically enscribed and read out. The tag is thus able to not only transmit locational co-ordinates to a robot, it can also store data, e.g. for purposes of quality control.
The RFID chip specially constructed for the "smart floor" underlay consists of an ultra-thin sheet of PET which has been equipped with metal conductors, an antenna coil and a tiny silicon microchip. Each of the RFID chip tags has its own ID number which can be detected and identified by an RFID reader via wireless data transmission (13.56 MHz) across a distance of 10 centimetres. The power required for this process is supplied exclusively by the robot. The RFID chips themselves are completely passive, meaning that no electrical voltage whatsoever exists on the underlay itself.
Reading out the RFID chip tags allows the individual "signal transmitters" to be linked by the robot into a virtual map. The robot then moves precisely along the "routing network" formed in this manner towards a defined point or, when the situation deals with a cleaning robot, to move back and forth in a co-ordinated fashion to cover a space. A reading memory analyses which targets have already been driven to or which areas of a given surface have already been processed. It is also possible for the robot to enscribe date and time information onto the RFID chip. This opens up the possibility for a simple form of service control (Quality Management).
A decisive system advantage: The "smart floor" System enables controlled navigation, even in the case of obstacles. Fixed obstacles are noted on the "virtual map" and subsequently circumvented. Temporary obstacles are detected by the robot unit, triggering a spontaneous change in navigation. If the obstacle no longer exists later on, that area of the floor is targeted directly once again. In the case of cleaning robots, working in this manner means that a nearly 100-per-cent coverage of the surface can be achieved. And both time and energy are saved, too. A distinct advance over existing robot systems, which until now have merely moved more or less randomly across a space.
Yet the "smart floor" System can do even more. For instance, using this system it is possible to have a robot go to different areas on a scheduled basis, e.g. when experience has shown that no one else will be moving around there at that time. The robot receives the appropriate information from a control PC via Bluetooth. It is furthermore possible to deposit information on an RFID chip regarding the space itself (for example corridor or room numbers) or certain properties of the flooring underneath.
"smart floor" installation
A robust protective layer is applied to both sides of the textile weave for "smart floor" installation. That protection is not sensitive to normal adhesives used for carpets, laminates, tiles or synthetic floor coverings. The communication capability of the RFID chips in the underlay extends to a thickness of about 30mm in terms of the floor coverings installed on top of it. Practically all conventional types of floor coverings can thus be utilised. In addition, the "smart floor" construction does not impair the usage and care characteristics of the covering in any way.
Today's robot control systems are mostly navigated via video or GPS. Both processes are complicated and costly. They lead to high-priced equipment, which in turn can be applied only in specific industrial sectors. Here the "smart floor" System from Vorwerk offers a simple and reasonably priced alternative suitable for all contract floor-covering segments.
In the future, the "smart floor" System is going to be of particular interest for buildings with a high degree of transport activities, for instance hospitals or nursing homes. In this case the deployment of entire fleets of robots is conceivable in order to spare personnel repetitive long distances. One conceivable example is that "smart floor" controls the automated transport of empty beds to the basement for cleaning. Equally feasible is the system's ability to take over the navigation of transport robots for meals, bedclothes, medication or in-house mail. Viewed on a medium-term basis, even a deployment in private sectors is conceivable. As for the robot end-product industry, with its futuristic high-tech system Vorwerk is offering an ideal opportunity to bring solutions oriented to end consumers to the market.
Vorwerk is presenting the innovative high-tech product "smart floor" to the public for the first time at the CeBIT 2006 as an underlay ready for series production. From the 9th to the 15th of March, experts will be explaining the technological details and displaying the wide-ranging possibilities for using the RFID underlay at the BMFE exhibition area in Hall 9, Booth A60.
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