Vacuum Bot Control App

Operator tablet design for a fleet of industrial floor cleaning robots, covering zones, scheduling, live control and fleet state.

Operator dashboard showing bot status, battery and water levels, the active task and a list of zones with when each was last cleaned

The problem

Vanora was building a floor cleaning robot for industrial use rather than the home. The hardware and the electronics were theirs. The software was outsourced, and that is the part this covers.

Scale is what separates the two. A home robot answers to one person in one room. A factory runs several bots across zones, and the state that matters is spread across all of them at once: where each one is, what it has covered, how much charge and water it has left, and what is still owed.

Approach

The designs cover the operator app, for a tablet rather than a phone. Two levels of access were planned, manager and operator, and the operator side is the one that was designed: the person on the floor running the machines rather than the one reviewing them afterwards.

What the bot does sets what the app has to show. It reads the layout and builds its own map on the first run, then cleans to a schedule, takes itself back to the charging hub when it needs to, and resumes where it stopped. The bots also work as a group, so if one runs down partway through a job, another that is free picks the job up and finishes it.

The home screen answers the shift in one look. Which bot is in trouble, what it is doing now and how far through, how much charge and water are left and how long each will last, what is scheduled today, and when each zone was last cleaned.

A zone opens into its own record: how long it usually takes, how large it is, what has run there recently, and the job in progress with the controls to start, hold or stop it.

Zone screen for Conference Room 1, with average cleaning time and area, a list of recent cleaning activities, the active task with progress and transport controls, and the upcoming schedule — A zone, with what has run there and what is running now.

Scheduling a run is four decisions: the day, the time, wet or dry, and which bot takes it.

Scheduling dialog over the zone screen, with day, time, a wet or dry cleaning choice and a bot selector — Scheduling, or changing a run that is already booked.

Manual control is the exception to all of it, for when a bot needs driving rather than instructing. It streams the bot's own camera, with a pad for movement, a second for turning in place, a torch for a dark corner, and a capture for anything worth keeping. The start, hold and stop controls stay where they are everywhere else.

Manual control screen showing a live camera view from the bot, with movement and rotation pads overlaid and torch and capture controls — Driving a bot by hand, from its own camera.

Entry is a staff ID and a PIN, which is what a shared floor device can reasonably ask.

Login screen split between a patterned panel and a form taking a staff ID and a PIN — Staff ID and PIN.

The problem

Vanora was building a floor cleaning robot for industrial use rather than the home. The hardware and the electronics were theirs. The software was outsourced, and that is the part this covers.

Approach

A zone opens into its own record: how long it usually takes, how large it is, what has run there recently, and the job in progress with the controls to start, hold or stop it.

A zone, with what has run there and what is running now.

Scheduling a run is four decisions: the day, the time, wet or dry, and which bot takes it.

Scheduling, or changing a run that is already booked.

Driving a bot by hand, from its own camera.

Entry is a staff ID and a PIN, which is what a shared floor device can reasonably ask.

Staff ID and PIN.