Patent ID: 8686679

Claim:
A robot navigation system, comprising: a robot having a signal receiver oriented in a manner to have an omnidirectional field of view and configured to receive both directed signals and diffuse signals; a portable barrier signal transmitting device for robot navigation, comprising: at least one signal emitter that emits a first, directed signal; and at least one omnidirectional signal emitter that emits a diffuse signal region, the directed signal and the diffuse signal region overlapping in a plane parallel to ground level such that a signal receiver on the robot may detect either one or both of the directed signal and the diffuse signal region; and a control system configured to control one or more of the signal emitters, the control system being configured to: turn on one or both of the signal emitters in response to a signal received from the robot; and turn one or both of the signal emitters off after a predetermined amount of time.