With the technological development of service robots, swimming pool cleaning robots underwater are widely applied in the market. In order to realize their automatic planning routes, cost-effective and adaptive ultrasonic underwater ranging obstacle avoidance sensors are indispensable.
Vast Market
Up to now, North America is still largest market in the global pool market development (Technavio Market Report, 2019-2024). There are already more than 10.7 million swimming pools in the United States, and the number of new pools, mainly private pools, is rising year after year, with an increase of 117,000 in 2021. An average of one pool for every 31 people. In France, the world’s second largest pool market, the number of private pools has exceeded 3.2 million in 2022.And the number of new pools has reached 244,000 in one year, with an average of one pool for every 21 people.
In the Chinese market, which is dominated by public swimming pools, an average of about 43,000 people share a swimming gym (there are 32,500 swimming pools in the country, based on a population of 1.4 billion).
Spain has the fourth highest number of swimming pools in the world and the second highest number of swimming pools in Europe, with 1.3 million swimming pools (residential, public and collective).
From the global——China pool robot market comparison, the Chinese market market size is less than 1% of the world, the main market is still Europe and the United States. Data show that in 2021, the global pool robot market size of nearly 11.2 billion RMB, sales of more than 1.6 million units, only the United States online channel. Swimming pool cleaning robot shipments have reached more than 500,000 units in 2021.And their growth rate have more than 130%, belonged to the early stage of rapid growth.
At present, the pool cleaning market is still dominated by manual cleaning, and in the global swimming pool cleaning market, manual cleaning accounts for about 45%, while swimming pool cleaning robots account for about 19%. In the future, with the increase of labor costs and the popularization of industry technologies such as visual perception, ultrasonic perception, intelligent path planning, Internet of things, SLAM (instant positioning and map construction technology) and other related technologies,swimming pool cleaning robots will gradually change from functional to intelligent, and the penetration rate of pool cleaning robots will be further improved.
Global swimming pool cleaning market penetration rate in 2021
Dedicated sensing, underwater ranging sensors help the swimming pool cleaning robot to avoid obstacles intelligently
Ultrasonic underwater distance measurement obstacle avoidance sensor is a kind of sensor used in robot underwater obstacle avoidance. The sensor uses ultrasonic underwater distance measurement technology to measure the distance between the sensor and the measured object. When the sensor detects an obstacle, the distance of the obstacle is returned to the robot, and the robot can stop, turn, slow down, navigate the wall, climb the wall and other operations according to the direction installed by the sensor and the returned distance value to realize the purpose of automatically cleaning the swimming pool and avoiding the obstacle.
It comes here——L08 underwater ranging sensor
The forward-looking layout of DSP sensor, independent research and development of underwater ranging sensors, through the configuration of underwater ranging sensors in the underwater robot, so that the swimming pool cleaning robot has the obstacle avoidance planning path function.
L08-module is an ultrasonic underwater obstacle avoidance sensor designed for underwater applications. It has the advantages of small size, small blind area, high precision and good waterproof performance. Support modbus protocol.There are different range, Angle and blind zone specifications for different needs of users to choose.
Basic parameters:
Aim at the pain points, innovate and break through
How to better empower the swimming pool cleaning robot through the underwater ranging sensor, and achieve feasible technological breakthroughs, the full chain integration of services and solutions.Dianyingpu has been focused on its research and development .After in-depth research, we aim at the pain points of the market and innovate to break through.
(1) high cost , there is no way to popularize the application of consumer products: underwater ranging detection sensors sold at home and abroad, the price is ranging from thousands of yuan.People are very sensitive to consumer robots of cost, so they can not be widely used currently .
Combined with the cost target requirements of underwater consumer robots, the company independently researched and developed transducer matching parameters, localization of core materials, and mass production experience. The cost was reduced to less than 10% of the industry, pioneering the adoption of underwater sensors in consumer electronics.
(2)Poor compatibility of sensor parameters on the market: a sensor is far away, the blind area is small, and the compatible parameters of the Angle are not available on the market, which often requires the combination of a variety of sensors, and the combination cost is high.
Developed a dual-frequency multi-beam transducer, which solves the high-quality parameters of distance, blind area and angle.
①The multi-beam Angle is close to 90°, and the range can satisfy more than 6m, meet the blind area within 5cm, and the compatibility of application scenarios is very high.
② The core material of the ultrasonic sensor is the ceramic plate transducer, the product adopts the radial frequency and thickness frequency of the ceramic plate clever design scheme, and then through the drive adaptation and gain band-pass filtering adaptation, the radial frequency resonance frequency is low, the measurement angle is large, the thickness frequency resonance frequency is high, the penetration is strong, the measurement distance is far and the parameters of the small blind area are taken into account.
(3)In the complex underwater environment is unstable: when there is turbidity water, large water flow, underwater silt water grass, the sensor data basically fails, resulting in the robot can not judge the operation intelligently.
The problem used in the complex underwater environment is solved by the clever combination of dual-frequency multi-beam and adaptive algorithm and Kalman filter processing. Superposition of advantages of different frequencies, multi-beam intelligent drive, diversification of working modes, power, angle, signal quality can adapt to scene changes.
Product structure and process:
(1)the structure is simple in appearance, small in size, installation only need to put the recommended hole in the shell to tighten the nut, connected the normal output data of the equipment represents the installation is complete; Later maintenance only need to turn on the nut to remove the sensor, simple operation, reduce the learning cost of installation and maintenance.
(2) the product process, the transducer uses non-contact ranging technology, closed integrated structure.And the whole machine adopts dustproof and waterproof design. The internal circuit uses potting epoxy resin glue fully wrapped protection, waterproof effect can reach IP68 level.
Research independently and reliable function
In development process of the sensor, the R & D team repeatedly optimized and iterated multidimensional parameters such as data stability, water flow influence, frequency and manufacturability. And conducted multidimensional tests closely combined with the actual working conditions of the pool cleaning robot to further improve the sensor’s adaptability to the environment and working conditions.
At the same time, Dianyingpu has always maintained the awe of technology, underwater ranging sensor as a measurement component, compared with the design and debugging, production and calibration is more important, synchronously developed a complete set of underwater ranging sensor testing and calibration system.
Based on the test and calibration system, the sensor underwent reliability tests such as high temperature and high humidity storage, hot and cold shock test, salt spray test, UV accelerated aging test, naked drop test, liquid immersion test (simulated underwater corrosion test), vacuum pressure waterproof test, which is carried out in each prototype iteration.
After the sensor is integrated with the robot body, the performance of the whole machine is tested for thousands of hours in combination with the actual working environment of the robot. The yield of this sensor in mass production is greater than 99%, which has been verified by the market practice of batch production.
Accumulated, L08 will continue to update
Review the development path of underwater ranging sensors: research, integration, innovation, verification. Each node is the brave innovation, hard search, and rich accumulation of power in the field of technology. L08 is the first product of the company’s underwater ultrasonic ranging application. The company will launch more products based on underwater robot underwater obstacle avoidance and depth exploration.
In the future, with the promotion of underwater robots, underwater ranging sensors as the key support for intelligent sensing of underwater robots, will certainly bring huge changes to the underwater robot industry and field.
Post time: Aug-04-2023