Robotic Mop

Overview

The robotic mop is an autonomous floor cleaner that maps a home and mops hard floors with twin spinning microfiber pads. A spinning LiDAR builds a map of the room so the robot can plan efficient paths, avoid obstacles, and return to its dock. Unlike a robot vacuum, its job is wet cleaning: it meters water onto the pads, presses them against the floor, and recovers the soiled water into a separate tank.

The chassis rides on two driven wheels and a front caster, with a compliant bumper for contact. A navigation SoC runs the mapping and path planning while a real-time MCU handles motion and motor control.

How it works

The Navigation Suite suite gives the robot its sense of the room. A spinning LiDAR turret measures distances to walls, cliff sensors watch for drops at stair edges, bump switches register contact, a wall sensor enables edge following, and an IMU tracks heading. The Main Board fuses these into a live map and decides where to go.

Movement comes from two Drive Wheel Module units. Each is a brushless gearmotor with a wheel encoder for odometry and a spring that keeps the wheel loaded on uneven floors, letting the robot drive straight lines and precise turns.

Cleaning happens in the Mop System. A metering pump wets two counter-rotating pad modules, each spun by its own brushless motor, that scrub the floor; a clean-water tank feeds them and a recovery tank collects the dirty water. A lift actuator raises the pads over carpet or when docking. The Side Brush Module sweeps debris from edges into the pad path.

The Battery Pack is a 4S Li-ion pack with a protective BMS. When charge runs low the robot follows the IR beacon back to its Charging Dock, a powered base with spring contacts that replenishes the pack. App control reaches the robot over the Wi-Fi Module.