Patent ID: 11898849
Assignee: CLEARPATH ROBOTICS INC.
Field: Control (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 15:
16. A system for operating a self-driving material transport vehicle to update an electronic map of a facility while the self-driving material transport vehicle is executing a mission, the system comprising:
one or more self-driving material transport vehicles operable to navigate the facility, the one or more self-driving material transport vehicles comprising the self-driving material-transport vehicle, the self-driving material-transport vehicle comprising:
a memory to store the electronic map, the electronic map comprising a set of map nodes, each map node being associated with a different location in the facility, and each map node comprises a stored image data associated with a respective location within the facility;
one or more sensors to collect image data at a current position of the self-driving material transport vehicle until the self-driving material transport vehicle arrives at a destination location of one or more destination locations within the facility, the image data representing one or more features observable from the current position; and
a processor operable to:
receive one or more mission instructions to initiate the self-driving material transport vehicle to execute one or more mission tasks at the one or more destination locations within the facility;
while the self-driving material transport vehicle navigates within the facility to execute the one or more mission tasks, concurrently execute an electronic map update task separate from the one or more mission tasks, the electronic map update task comprising one or more map update instructions to:
determine if the electronic map comprises a map node associated with the current position;
in response to determining that the electronic map does not include a map node associated with the current position, identify one or more neighboring map nodes within a neighbor threshold of the current position;
compare the collected image data with the stored image data associated with one or more (i) the map node associated with the current position, and (ii) at least one neighboring map node of the one or more neighboring maps nodes, to determine a dissimilarity level;
determine whether the dissimilarity level exceeds a dissimilarity threshold; and
in response to determining the dissimilarity level exceeds the dissimilarity threshold stored in the memory, update the electronic map based at least on the collected image data.