The present disclosure relates to data transfer and power delivery for a robot via direct physical contact with a docking station.
Prior art has described data transfer between a robot and a docking station over a wireless LAN or via fast wired data transfer in the form of a tether, which limits the range of the robot to the length of the tether.
In one aspect, the present disclosure provides a robot receivable by a docking station, the robot comprising: a contact structure to form physical contact with the docking station; and a contact interface on the contact structure, the contact interface comprising a plurality of power pins and data pins so as to be electrically connected to the docking station when the contact interface of the robot contacts a corresponding contact interface of the docking station.
In one embodiment, the power pins and the data pins are arranged at random locations of the contact interface.
In one embodiment, the power pins and the data pins are arranged on the contact interface to have a rotational symmetry of at least order two.
In one embodiment, the contact interface is configured to have one of a rectangular shape, a triangular shape, a hexagonal shape, and an oval shape.
In one embodiment, the robot further comprises a battery electrically connected to the power pins and a controller electrically connected to the data pins.
In one embodiment, the robot is an aerial drone and further comprises a frame and one or more propellers on the frame, wherein the contact structure is a landing structure disposed below the frame.
In one embodiment, the contact interface is disposed at a bottom surface of the landing structure.
In one embodiment, the landing structure has a protrusive shape at a bottom portion of the landing structure complimentary to a recessed shape at a top portion of the docking station, or vice versa.
In another aspect, the present disclosure provides a docking station capable of receiving a robot, the docking station comprising: a main body; a reception dock on the main body; and a contact interface at a central portion of the reception dock, the contact interface comprising a plurality of power pads and data pads so as to be electrically connected to the robot when the contact interface of the docking station contacts a corresponding contact interface of the robot; wherein the power pads and the data pads are arranged on the contact interface to have a rotational symmetry of at least order two.
In one embodiment, the contact interface is configured to have one of a rectangular shape, a triangular shape, a hexagonal shape, and an oval shape.
In one embodiment, the docking station further comprises a power converter electrically connected to the power pads, the power converter capable of receiving wall power.
In one embodiment, the data pads are connectable to a data network.
In one embodiment, the reception dock has a recessed shape complementary to a protrusive shape at a bottom portion of the robot.
In one embodiment, the data pads are physical links that correspond to channels in a network protocol to transfer data in accordance with the network protocol.
In still another aspect, the present disclosure provides a combination of a robot and a docking station, wherein the robot comprises: a contact structure; and a contact interface on the contact structure, the contact interface comprising a plurality of power pins and data pins; wherein the docking station comprises: a main body; a reception dock on the main body; and a corresponding contact interface at a central portion of the reception dock, the corresponding contact interface comprising a plurality of power pads and data pads; wherein the power pins and the data pins of the robot are aligned with the power pads and the data pads of the docking station such that the power pins of the robot are electrically connectable to the power pads of docking station and that the data pins of the robot are electrically connectable to the data pads of docking station; wherein the power pins and the data pins of the robot are arranged on the contact interface to have a rotational symmetry of at least order two; and wherein the power pads and the data pads of the docking station are arranged on the corresponding contact interface to have a rotational symmetry same as that of the power pins and the data pins of the robot.
In one embodiment, the contact interface of the robot and the corresponding contact interface of the docking station are configured to have the same shape, which is one of a triangular shape, a hexagonal shape, and an oval shape.
In one embodiment, the robot further comprises a battery electrically connected to the power pins of the robot and a controller electrically connected to the data pins of the robot.
In one embodiment, the robot is an aerial drone and further comprises a frame and one or more propellers on the frame, wherein the contact structure is a landing structure disposed below the frame.
In one embodiment, the contact interface of the robot is disposed at a bottom surface of the landing structure.
In one embodiment, the landing structure has a protrusive shape at a bottom portion of the landing structure complimentary to a recessed shape of the reception dock of the docking station.
In one embodiment, the docking station further comprises a power converter electrically connected to the power pads of the docking station, the power converter capable of receiving wall power.
In one embodiment, the data pads of the docking station are connectable to a data network.
The present disclosure provides a mechanism for data transfer for robots using pre-existing network standards (such as, Universal Serial Bus (USB), Thunderbolt, Controller Area Network (CAN) bus, or Ethernet) and for power delivery, both implemented through direct contact pins on a robot and the corresponding pads on a docking station. The robot may be a legged or wheeled ground vehicle, an aerial vehicle such as a drone, an underwater robot, or any other suitable robots. The docking station may include a computing device, to which the robot can transfer data.
By making direct contact between the contact pins of a robot (for example, contact pins on a drone's bottom landing gear) and the contact pads of a docking station, a high-speed telecommunication channel can be established to allow transfer of data files of very large sizes (such as high-fidelity sensor data collected by the robot) at a data rate much faster than data transfer over a wireless LAN. In addition, the contact pins and pads can be used to charge the robot's batteries (depending on the network standard, such as via USB-PD, Thunderbolt, PoE, or other protocols), allowing the docking station to also deliver power to the robot in addition to data transfer.
Docking station 200 includes a main body 210, a reception dock 220 on an upper portion of main body 210, and a corresponding contact interface 225 (having a substantially rectangular shape) at a central portion of reception dock 220. Corresponding contact interface 225 may be electrically connected to a power source 10 (e.g., 110V AC wall power) and a data network 20 (e.g., a wide area network, a 4G-LTE network, etc.) so as to deliver power and transfer data to robot 100 when contact interface 125 of robot 100 is in direct physical contact and properly aligned with corresponding contact interface 225 of docking station 200. As shown in
In one embodiment, main controller 121 (and/or flight controller 126) includes a processor 122, memory 123, and a communications interface 124. Processor 122 provides processing functionality for main controller 121 (or components thereof) and can include any appropriate quantity of microprocessors, digital signal processors, micro-controllers, circuitry, field programmable gate array (FPGA) or other processing systems. Processor 122 can execute one or more software programs embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium that implement techniques described herein.
Memory 123 can be an example of tangible, computer-readable storage medium that provides storage functionality to store various data and or program code associated with operation of main controller 121, such as software programs and/or code segments, or other data to instruct processor 122, and possibly other components of main controller 121, to perform the functionality described herein. In some embodiments, memory 123 can be integrated with processor 122, can comprise stand-alone memory, or can be a combination of both. Some examples of the memory 123 can include removable and non-removable memory components, such as random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), flash memory (e.g., a secure digital (SD) memory card, a mini-SD memory card, and/or a micro-SD memory card), magnetic memory, optical memory, universal serial bus (USB) memory devices, hard disk memory, external memory, and so forth. In various embodiments, memory 123 can include removable integrated circuit card (ICC) memory, such as memory provided by a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, a universal subscriber identity module (USIM) card, a universal integrated circuit card (UICC), and so on.
Communications interface 124 may communicate with components of main controller 121. For example, communications interface 108 can retrieve data from a storage in main controller 121, transmit data for storage in main controller 121, etc. Communications interface 124 can also be communicatively coupled with processor 122 to facilitate data transfer between components of main controller 121 and processor 104. It is appreciated that while communications interface 124 is described as a component of main controller 121, one or more components of communications interface 124 can be implemented as external components communicatively coupled to main controller 121 via wired and/or wireless connections. Main controller 121 can also be connected to one or more input/output (I/O) devices via communications interface 108 and/or via direct or indirect communicative coupling with processor 122.
As shown in
Main controller 121 can utilize sensor inputs to detect identifiers on inventory items and/or other information (e.g., contextual information (e.g., location of an inventory item, time, temperature, humidity, pressure, etc.) or product information (e.g., label information for the inventory item, expiration information, production date, environmental tolerances, quantity, size/volume, product weight (if printed on the inventory item), etc.), navigate robot 100 (e.g., by avoiding obstacles, detecting reference points, updating a dynamic flight path for robot 100, and landing), and to stabilize and/or localize its position.
Contact interface 125 of robot 100 includes a plurality of power pins 102 and data pins 104. Power pins 102 are electrically connected to battery 104 for charging/discharging battery 140, while data pins 104 are electrically connected to communications interface 124 of main controller 121 for data transfer. In various embodiments, data pins 104 are arranged in accordance with an existing wired network standards (such as, Universal Serial Bus (USB), Thunderbolt, Controller Area Network (CAN) bus, or Ethernet) or may be the same as the power pins depending on network standard.
In this embodiment, each of power pads 411, 412, 413, and 414 includes a positive pad, a negative pad, and a ground pad to supply AC or DC power to robot 100 when pins of contact interface 125 are in physical contact and properly aligned with pads of corresponding contact interface 225. Each of power pads 411, 412, 413, and 414 can provide electric power to robot 100 independently from each other. In this embodiment, Ethernet standard is used for data transfer. As such, each of data pads 421 includes two transmit pads (TX+ and TX−) and two receive pads (RX+ and RX−) to enable data transfer to and from robot 100 when pins of contact interface 125 are in physical contact and properly aligned with pads of corresponding contact interface 225. As shown in
In other embodiments, contact interface 123 in
Software programs can be configured to transfer data and/or charge robot 100 upon connection and physical contact of robot 100 and docking station 200. In addition, there can be software that dynamically switches data transfer from physical standard connection to wireless LAN upon detection of the contact pins/pads are no longer connected, or vice versa. This allows for seamless data transfer during and after robot operation.
For the purposes of describing and defining the present disclosure, it is noted that terms of degree (e.g., “substantially,” “slightly,” “about,” “comparable,” etc.) may be utilized herein to represent the inherent degree of uncertainty that may be attributed to any quantitative comparison, value, measurement, or other representation. Such terms of degree may also be utilized herein to represent the degree by which a quantitative representation may vary from a stated reference (e.g., about 10% or less) without resulting in a change in the basic function of the subject matter at issue. Unless otherwise stated herein, any numerical value appearing in the present disclosure are deemed modified by a term of degree (e.g., “about”), thereby reflecting its intrinsic uncertainty.
Although various embodiments of the present disclosure have been described in detail herein, one of ordinary skill in the art would readily appreciate modifications and other embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure as stated in the appended claims.