Autonomous Actors – Autonomous Cleaning

Autonomous Cleaning is the only area where Autonomous Actors have already made a significant market impact! Apparently over 6 million Roomba autonomous vacuum cleaners have been sold (The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices, by Frank Moss, p. 155).

I get excessive glee from turning my loose Roomba and leaving, knowing that the rooms are being cleaned while I’m doing something else – did I mention that I hate to vacuum and clean J. 

But we need to go far beyond basic vacuuming to get the level of cleaning I believe is essential for my vision of Sustainable Communities!

Yes, Autonomous Cleaning will relieve the tedium of cleaning and, even better, free people’s time for more creative activities, yet although these are important contributions, the real necessity is that Autonomous Cleaning is essential for everyone’s health!

Consider the alarming growth of drug-resistant bacteria in hospitals, and the asthma epidemic, to mention just two:  expert cleaning is the only prevention, and Autonomous Cleaning Actors will be able to do this better and cheaper than any other way.

Freshman year, while I was practicing for the track team I contracted a foot fungus in the shower of the college gym and it has stuck with me for 45 years, despite soaking in KMnO₄ for weeks – finally there are apparently treatments that aren’t a danger to my liver and kidneys.

Autonomous Cleaning will cover many aspects of our lives and come in many different forms. Some Autonomous Cleaning mechanisms will travel to the location to be cleaned, e.g., bathrooms, walls, and windows; in other cases, the items to be cleaned will be brought to the specialized Autonomous Cleaning mechanism, e.g., dishes, clothes, and Autonomous Vehicles.

Consider washing dishes: current dishwashers use water much more efficiently than hand washing, and are more healthy, largely because they use hotter water for a longer period. But there are several problems with current dishwashers: 

• Even though the dishwasher may have different cycles available, they can’t safely and effectively wash different types of dishes in the same load, for example, fine china vs. cooking pots, so either you compromise by not getting all the dishes clean, or your ruin some of the dishes, or you make several partial runs which is wasteful
• Leave spots on glasses
• People often pre-rinse, or even pre-wash dishes because they don’t have a full load, or the dishwasher doesn’t do well with dried on food
• Unless you use the energy wasting drying cycle, you need to remove dishes from the dishwasher to air dry, or worse yet hand dry, before you put them away
• Dishwashers don’t monitor their own performance to determine what cycle will be most effective, what soap or other additives to use
• Some dishes aren’t suitable for current dishwashers, such as iron frying pans.

So we need customized dishwashers to handle different types of dishes, for example, some restaurants already have separate machines just for glasses, or just for plates. We need mechanisms to determine:

• which dishes go in which machine, for example glassware vs. china vs. metal utensils vs. plastic utensils
• how much cleaning is required for a particular item, for example a dish used by someone with a communicable disease needs sterilization
• whether a dish has been successfully cleaned, for example, is there still lipstick on a glass or food cooked on a pot
• what type of cleaning is appropriate, for example, a well-prepared iron pan may just need to be wiped out with salt, while a stainless steel pot may need vigorous rubbing, and a Pyrex pot needs gentle treatment, and
• other considerations yet to be innovated, for example non-hazardous cleaning substances and surfaces.

Autonomous Cleaning will address many different cleaning needs in our lives: clothing, cooking, eating, floors, walls, windows, electronics, bathrooms, toilets, bathtubs, heating and cooling system, medical items, Autonomous Vehicles, Autonomous Cleaning devices, and even us (see the recycling shower).

The complexity and expense of appropriate Autonomous Cleaning mechanisms, and the limited need for each type of cleaning after each meal leads naturally to sharing Autonomous Cleaning systems.

Thus when you finish each stage of preparing and eating a meal, you can put the cooking and eating utensils into Containers and they will be carried by Autonomous Vehicles to the appropriate Autonomous Cleaning system, and then the cleaned items will be returned by the Autonomous Vehicles and stored in your cabinets, ready for the next meal. The almost negligible cost of transporting small items with Autonomous Vehicles makes this feasible.

Sharing is an essential feature of Sustainable Communities both because it provides a major economic advantage (see the brief analysis ofsharing of Autonomous Vehicles), and it allows relatively expensive mechanisms to be used while they would not be practical for individual homes and organizations.

Thus I believe Autonomous Cleaning is essential for Sustainable Communities to be practical – when you share something it must be cleaner than if you cleaned it yourself – the opportunities and mechanisms for Sharing in Sustainable Communities will be discussed in more detail in future Posts.

Next I’ll talk about Autonomous Infrastructure Installation & Management.