US Patent 9701020 Method and system for robotic surface coverage

Methods for minimizing redundancy of surface coverage of a workspace using a robotic device and a base station are presented, the methods including: creating a polar map of the workspace defined by a number of cells; creating a policy by dividing the workspace into a number of zones each defined by a portion of the number of cells and by ordering the number of zones for surface coverage; selecting a zone of the number of zones for surface coverage by the robotic device; creating a cell matrix of the portion of number of cells representing the selected zone; assigning the selected zone to the robotic device; covering the selected zone by the robotic device; reporting an actual zone coverage to the base station; updating a coverage matrix corresponding with the cell matrix of the selected zone to indicate coverage; and calculating a penalty.