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Bumper apparatus of self-advancing cleanerRelated Patent Categories: Brushing, Scrubbing, And General Cleaning, Machines, With Air Blast Or Suction, With Automatic ControlBumper apparatus of self-advancing cleaner description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20060191096, Bumper apparatus of self-advancing cleaner. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is based on and claims the benefit of priorities from the prior Japanese Patent Applications No. 2005-031605, filed on Feb. 8, 2005 and No. 2005-026142, filed on Feb. 2, 2005; the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by references. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates to a bumper apparatus of a self-advancing type cleaner, particularly relates to the bumper apparatus having a bumper at a front portion thereof and providing a countermeasure for alleviating impact when two left and right side portions thereof interposing the bumper is bumped to a hazard of a wall face at inside of a room or the like, and further particularly relates to a bumper apparatus capable of detecting that a bumper provided at a front portion of a cabinet is bumped to a hazard on a front side in a self-advancing direction. [0004] 2. Description of the Related Art [0005] FIG. 11 is an outline total perspective view of a self-advancing type cleaner mounted with a bumper 10 of a related art, FIG. 12 is a plane view showing a portion of the cleaner attached with the bumper 10 and FIG. 13 is an outline perspective view of the bumper 10 of the related art. [0006] The cleaner A is provided with various mechanisms necessary for cleaning a floor face while advancing by itself, for example, mechanism parts of, for example, a dust sucking port and a chamber of containing a dust containing bag communicated therewith, a suction fan and a motor for driving the suction fan, an exhaust port, and a running drive motor, further, as shown by FIG. 11 or FIG. 12, projected corner portions 11, 11 are provided on left and right sides of a front side of a cabinet 1 thereof, rotating brushes 2, 2 are mounted on lower sides of the projected corner portions 11, 11 and the rotating brushes 2, 2 are connected to rotating shafts 21, 21 projected downward from the projected corner portions 11, 11. Further, the bumper 10 arranged between the left and right rotating brushes 2; 2 is provided with sensor elements 12 . . . for detecting a hazard, and the bumper 10 is attached to the cabinet 1. Further, running wheels 3 or the like are attached to a plurality of portions of a bottom plate portion of the cabinet 1. The cleaner runs by itself on the floor face by rolling the running wheels 3, dust sucked in the running is caught in the dust containing bag to thereby clean the floor face or clean cornerportions at inside of a room by the rotating brushes 2. Further, a self-advancing direction or a self-advancing speed or the like is controlled by operating control unit, not illustrated. Here, as shown by FIG. 13, the bumper 10 comprises an integral resin molded member prolonged in a transverse direction, and is provided with a function of preventing a front portion of the cabinet 1 from being strongly impacted to a hazard in advancing the cleaner A by itself. [0007] Meanwhile, there are known in related arts that a bumper apparatus is attached to an automatic guided vehicle to absorb impact (refer to, for example, JP-A-5-201296), that an impact absorbing bumper is attached to a vehicle body of an automobile (refer to, for example, JP-A-11-48883) and the like. In the related arts, according to the bumper apparatus described in Patent Reference 1, a bumper main body is attached to a vehicle body by way of a cam or a spring, and impact applied to the bumper main body is absorbed by deforming the spring. Further, also in the bumper apparatus described in Patent Reference 2, the bumper is attached to a vehicle body frame by way of a shock absorber, and impact applied to the bumper is absorbed by a function of the shock absorber. Further, in either of the bumper main body described in Patent Reference 1 and the bumper described in Patent Reference 2, a portion arranged at a front portion of the vehicle body and a portion for covering left and right corner portions on a front side of the vehicle body are formed substantially by the same width, and continuously installed in a curved shape integrally, and the bumper main body or the bumper per se are not provided with a countermeasure for achieving dumping operation. [0008] In another related art, there is known a bumper apparatus per se having a function of detecting that a bumper is bumper is bumped to a hazard on a front side in a self-advancing direction (refer to, for example, Patent Reference 1). The bumper apparatus is provided to a mobile X-ray apparatus and an essential portion thereof will be explained in reference to FIG. 14. FIG. 14 is a view illustrated in FIG. 1 of JP-A-2002-52016, numeral 400 designates an attaching base, numeral 600 designates a bumper attached to the attaching base 400 movably in a front and rear direction at two left and right portions thereof by way of a bolt 401 and a slide plate 402, numeral 403 designates a spring for springingly urging the bumper 600 to a front side at the two left and right portions, numeral 410 designates microswitches attached to the two left and right portions of the attaching base, and numeral 610 designates switch contact plates provided at left and right portions of the bumper 600 in correspondence with the respective microswitches 410. [0009] According to the bumper apparatus of FIG. 14, when the bumper 200 is bumped to a hazard and is moved back against urging of the spring 403, the microswitch 410 is brought into contact with the switch contact plate 610 to switch an electricity conducting state thereof, thereby, it is detected that the bumper 600 is bumped to the hazard. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0010] According to the self-advancing cleaner A explained in FIG. 11 or FIG. 12, the bumper 10 is only arranged over only between the left and right rotating brushes 2, 2 and therefore, impact when the left and right projected corner portions 11, 11 of the cabinet 1 are bumped to the wall face at inside of the room or the like cannot be alleviated by the bumper 10. [0011] Hence, although in order to improve the point, it is conceivable to extend the bumper 10 to left and right sides and dispose the extended portions of the bumper 10 on lower sides of the left and right projected corner portions of the cabinet 1, when constituted in this way, there is brought about a concern that impact when the extended portion of the bumper is impacted to a hazard of the wall face at inside of the room or the like is directly transmitted to a portion of attaching the bumper 10 of the cabinet and attaching structure portions of the both members are damaged. [0012] Further, although as shown by FIG. 11, the bumper 10 is provided with the sensor elements 12 for detecting a hazard and in running by itself, a hazard on a front side is made to be able to be detected by operation of the sensor elements 12, since the bumper 10 is only arranged over only between the left and right rotating brushes 2, 2, it is difficult to firmly detect a hazard on a skewed front side in a running direction only by the sensor elements 12 provided to the bumper 10. [0013] Although with regard to the point, it is possible to make also the hazard on the skewed front side in the running direction detectable by increasing a number of sensor elements provided to the bumper 10, when constituted in this way, the number of the sensor elements is increased to increase cost, further, in consideration that the corner portion can be cleaned after moving the rotating brushes 2 to the corner portion at inside of the room, it is not pertinent that the wall face at inside of the chamber is detected by the sensor element to prevent the left and right projected corner portions 11, 11 from impacting the wall face at inside of the room. In other words, in order to clean the corner portion at inside of the room by the rotating brush 2, it is necessary that the cleaner A becomes proximate to the wall face at inside of the chamber to a degreed of bringing the left and right projected corner portions 11, 11 into contact with the wall face at inside of the chamber. [0014] On the other hand, the bumper apparatus described in JP-A-5-201296 is adopted in an automatic guided vehicle used in an automatic warehouse or the like, the bumper apparatus described in JP-A-11-48883 is adopted in an automobile and therefore, the bumper apparatus are requested to be large-sized and provided with a high strength in comparison with the bumper apparatus of the self-advancing cleaner A used in cleaning inside of the room or the like explained in reference to FIG. 11 and the like. Therefore, it is actually difficult to provide a countermeasure for alleviating impact when the left and right projected corner portions 11, 11 of the cabinet 1 are bumped to the wall face at inside of the room or the like by applying the structure of the bumper apparatus described in JP-A-5-201296 or JP-A-11-48883 to the bumper apparatus of the self-advancing cleaner A as it is, and when the structure is assumedly adopted as it is, there is constituted a structure of supporting the bumper 10 of the bumper apparatus of the cleaner A by a spring or a shock absorber and therefore, not only the spring of the shock absorber is extraneously needed to considerably increase cost but also a space for installing the spring or the shock absorber is extraneously needed to increase the weight, the cleaner A is large-sized and heavy-weighted and it is difficult to achieve light-weighted and small-sized formation requested for the cleaner A for cleaning inside of the room. [0015] According to the bumper apparatus of the another related art explained in reference to FIG. 14, even when any position of the bumper 600 is bumped to the hazard, the bumper is moved back in a rearward direction relative to the attaching base 100, and the microswitch is switched by way of such a moving back operation of the bumper 600 and therefore, a case in which the bumper 600 is bumped to the hazard disposed on a front side in a running direction of the mobile X-ray apparatus cannot be identified from a case in which the bumper 600 is bumped to the hazard disposed on a skewed front side in the running direction. [0016] On the other hand, when there is assumedly adopted the bumper apparatus of a self-advancing cleaner constituting an object of the invention running by itself in a narrow place of inside of a room as shown by FIG. 14 and a self-advancing direction or the like is intended to control by a switch signal of the microswitch when the bumper is bumped to the hazard, it cannot be determined whether the hazard is disposed on the front side or on the skewed front side in the self-advancing direction and therefore, a precise control cannot be carried out. [0017] The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances. It is an object of the invention to provide a bumper apparatus of a self-advancing cleaner capable of alleviating impact when left and right projected corner portions of a cabinet are impacted to a hazard of a wall face at inside of a room or the like without increasing a number of sensor elements provided to a bumper and without adding a large-scaled part of a spring, a shock absorber or the like and without a concern that the impact is directly transmitted to a portion of attaching the bumper and the cabinet to damage attaching structure portions of the both members. [0018] It is an another object of the invention to provide a bumper apparatus of a self-advancing cleaner including a bumper attached to a front portion of a cabinet movably in a front and rear direction and normally urged springingly to a front side, and switching member for detecting a rearward movement of the bumpers the bumper apparatus being able to be made to be precisely useful for a control in a self-advancing direction or other operation control by enabling to precisely determine whether a hazard is disposed on a front side or a skewed front side in a self-running direction when the bumper is bumped to the hazard. [0019] Further, it is still another object of the invention to provide a bumper apparatus of a self-advancing cleaner capable of restraining a necessary number of switches constituting switching member as less as possible when the switching member is adopted as unit for determining whether a hazard is disposed on a front side or a skewed front side in a self-advancing direction. [0020] Further, it is still yet another object of the invention to provide a bumper apparatus of a self-advancing cleaner capable of simply constituting a structure of a portion of attaching a bumper to a cabinet without using an extra part when switching member is adopted as unit for determining whether a hazard is disposed on a front side or a skewed front side in a self-advancing direction. [0021] According to an aspect of the invention, a bumper apparatus of a self-advancing cleaner is mounted with rotating brushes rotated while being brought into contact with a floor face on lower sides of left and right projected corner portions on a front side of a cabinet and mounted with a bumper comprising a resin molded member between the left and right rotating brushes. Further, a damper made of a resin arranged at a space at which the rotating brush and the projected corner portion on an upper side of the rotating brush are opposed to each other is integrally molded with an end portion of the bumper in a cantilever shape by way of a resin hinge portion having an elasticity for displacing the damper in an inner and outer direction. Continue reading about Bumper apparatus of self-advancing cleaner... Full patent description for Bumper apparatus of self-advancing cleaner Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Bumper apparatus of self-advancing cleaner patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. Start now! - Receive info on patent apps like Bumper apparatus of self-advancing cleaner or other areas of interest. ### Previous Patent Application: Windshield wiper assembly and method of manufacturing same Next Patent Application: Transport cleaning device Industry Class: Brushing, scrubbing, and general cleaning ### FreshPatents.com Support Thank you for viewing the Bumper apparatus of self-advancing cleaner patent info. 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