Service robots play an increasingly vital role in society, from transportation and warehouse logistics to home entertainment and security. Regardless of their application, they need to sense changes in their surroundings in real-time to ensure safety while providing a positive user experience. To illustrate how various sensor technologies from TDK’s SmartSensor family can be applied in service robots, this article focuses on a robotic vacuum cleaner (RVC).
Early versions of robotic vacuums had very little intelligence, randomly bumping their way around the home and sometimes missing areas as they did not know where they had been. Often, they would unwittingly become trapped or run out of charge mid-sweep. And, as their dust box is comparatively small to a regular vacuum cleaner, if full, they could be sweeping but not collecting anything up. Over the years, with the innovative use of sensors and motor controllers, vacuum cleaning robots have become much smarter, overcoming these issues.

The TDK Robokit1 combines sensors, processors, and actuators on a single board, making it an ideal robotics platform for quick prototyping and development. RoboKit1 integrates key product offerings such as 6-axis IMU, industrial IMU modules, capacitive barometric pressure sensor, digital I²S microphone, temp sensor, ultrasonic Time of Flight (ToF) sensors, magnetometer, and motor controller on a single PCB.
It also comes equipped with ARM® Cortex®-M7, multiple interfaces, and is compatible with multiple processor platforms such as Raspberry Pi and ASUS Tinker Board. RoboKit1 is not just another dev board—it is the comprehensive TDK solution showcase!

Service robots are widely used in various situations such as logistics / transport, security, cleaning, housework, hobbies / entertainment and care / assistance. Since service robots are used in a wide variety of situations, it is necessary to fulfil many requirements such as smooth communication with humans (HMI), ensuring safety and responding to changes in the real time. In service robots, the role of a sensor is very important. In this article, we will take a vacuum cleaner robots as an example.

In electric vehicles (xEVs), thermal management plays a crucial role for battery safety and longevity, inverter and motor monitoring, and comfort also. For this purpose, TDK offers a broad variety of innovative NTC and PTC based temperature sensors solutions, optimized by their design and specification for the respective applications. However, advanced Micronas Hall sensors and motor controllers also perform important tasks, for example in the high-precision control of valves.

The HVC 4420F is designed for the drive of small brush-type, stepper, or brushless motors. It satisfies the latest needs of the automotive industry to provide diagnostics capability newly introduced in the field of smart actuators.This article clearly describes and explains information valuable for our customers related to the features of TDK's HVC 4420F of Embedded Motor Controllers.