Patent ID: 8160762

Claim:
An autonomous moving apparatus comprising: a vehicle provided with a drive unit; a cover that is attached to the vehicle such that the cover either entirely or partially covers side, upper, and lower surfaces of the vehicle, and the cover is arranged to be displaced with respect to the vehicle; a detection unit arranged to output detection signals in accordance with relative displacement generated between at least one of the upper and lower surfaces of the vehicle and the cover facing at least one of the upper and lower surfaces; and a control unit arranged to control the drive unit in accordance with the detection signal output from the detection unit; wherein the detection unit is a first detection unit, the autonomous moving apparatus further comprising a second detection unit provided with detection characteristics that are different from detection characteristics of the first detection unit; wherein the first detection unit is turned on or off when the cover is displaced by a prescribed value; the second detection unit is turned on or off when the cover is displaced by a value that is greater than the prescribed value; and the control unit controls the drive unit in accordance with on or off signals output from the first detection unit and the second detection unit.