PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16108204
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-08
Publication Date: 2019-01
Patent Classification: ["700", "248000"]

Abstract:
A system and method is disclosed for configuring a group of mobile field devices using a configuration device (an HMI) is provided. In particular, the HMI is programmed to configure identically programmed field devices that are arbitrarily arranged in an application-dependent formation by defining and providing configuration parameters to the devices via wired and/or wireless communication. In particular, the HMI assigns a unique identifier to respective robots as a function of the position of the robot within the formation or the layout of the environment. Accordingly each robot can be efficiently configured by the HMI to operate independently yet as a coordinated member of the group and without requiring the robots to be placed in specific positions during the initial deployment. This obviates the need for constant independent control commands for each robot by a central controller or providing a customized control program to each robot during deployment.

Claim (Index 1):
A method for configuring a group of mobile robots for cleaning an array of solar panels to perform non-identical operations in a coordinated manner, comprising:\n physically associating the mobile robots with respective solar panels in the array thereby forming an application-dependent formation of robots, wherein each robot includes a non-transitory computer readable memory storing a control program, a communication interface and a processor that is configured to control operation of the robot according to the control program; configuring, with the HMI, a first robot associated with a first solar panel in the array, wherein the HMI is a hand-held computing device including a computer-readable storage medium having executable instructions stored therein, a communication interface and a processor that is configured by executing the instructions, and wherein configuring includes:\n establishing, by the HMI using the communication interface, communication with the first robot, \n determining, by the HMI, a respective starting position within the formation for the first robot, wherein the respective starting position is a relative position within the formation, \n automatically defining, by the HMI, respective configuration settings for the first robot including at least a respective device identifier (ID), wherein the respective device ID is assigned as a function of the determined starting position and is defined irrespective of any pre-existing unique identifier assigned to the first robot, \n transferring, by the HMI using the communication interface, the configuration settings to the first robot, and \n repeating the configuring step for the remaining robots in the formation, wherein the HMI assigns a unique device ID to each of the robots as a function of respective starting positions and wherein the device IDs are assigned sequentially according to the application-dependent formation; initiating coordinated operation of the group of robots according to the control program and the respective configuration settings.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 29.0
- Percentile: 96.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.74444
- Patent Class: 700.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15240530', '14370383', '15124426', '15320310', '10392747']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.3549131261327506
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.538040892149005
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.373225902734376
- Mean Citation Score: 190.039916
- Max Citation Score: 408.82492
- Similarity Product: 277.5031861635208

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test