Inventors:
Chikyung Won - Tewksbury MA, US
Stephen A. Hickey - Somerville MA, US
Mark Schnittman - Cambridge MA, US
Zivthan A. Dubrovsky - Waltham MA, US
Selma Svendsen - Andover MA, US
Jed Lowry - Duxbury MA, US
David Swett - Waltham MA, US
John Devlin - Tewksbury MA, US
Assignee:
IROBOT CORPORATION - Bedford MA
International Classification:
A47L 5/16
Abstract:
A cleaning robot system including a robot and a robot maintenance station. The robot includes a robot body, a drive system, a cleaning assembly, and a cleaning bin carried by the robot body and configured to receive debris agitated by the cleaning assembly. The robot maintenance station includes a station housing configured to receive the robot for maintenance. The station housing has an evacuation passageway exposed to a top portion of the received robot. The robot maintenance station also includes an air mover in pneumatic communication with the evacuation passageway and a collection bin carried by the station housing and in pneumatic communication with the evacuation passageway. The station housing and the robot body fluidly connect the evacuation passageway to the cleaning bin of the received robot. The air mover evacuates debris held in the robot cleaning bin to the collection bin through the evacuation passageway.