At the end of 2021, we received a challenging project from Leidstone, which made our friends very excited.

The Ledstone team predicts that the future [automatic swimming pool cleaning robot] will usher in rapid growth-in North America, there are tens of millions of private swimming pools, and swimming pools need to be cleaned regularly. Now, the owners mainly clean them themselves or hire people to clean them. Cleaning up on your own is a huge task, and North America's labor costs are high, and it's unrealistic to hire someone to take care of it for a long time. This leaves a huge living space for pool robots. If we use modern technological innovation to solve the pain points of existing products, redevelop a robot that can fully automatically clean the swimming pool, and apply the algorithms and technologies accumulated by the team in the development of sweeping robots to this category of products, there will be opportunities to make revolutionary products.

Leidstone hopes that our team can work with them to complete the design and development of this product.

After more than a year of continuous polishing, this product was launched at CES at the beginning of this year and has been officially sold since June.

Traditional swimming pool cleaning products need to be connected to a long power cord and plugged into the shore when in use, because power cannot be safely provided at the bottom of the water, and the long power cord will affect the activities of people in the swimming pool, so after use, it needs to be salvaged out of the water. And in the process of robot cleaning, the power cord is also easy to wrap around obstacles in the middle or around the pool.

The characteristic of this robot is that it completely solves the above problems by charging the float and charging the base station. He can live completely underwater, clean regularly every day, charge himself when there is no electricity, and can also remotely control the cleaning by mobile phone app. You no longer need to salvage it out of the water, which is equivalent to hiring a professional worker who specializes in running your pool.

The robot has multiple radar sensors, which can scan the shape of the swimming pool by itself, and plan its own path according to the shape of the swimming pool, so as to clean with the highest efficiency without leaving dead corners.

When the battery is low, it can swim back to the charging pile on the shore and complete the charging by itself. According to your plan, clean up on time.

This is the flagship product of the Ledstone pool cleaning category, so in addition to meeting the high-level technology mentioned above, it also needs to have an impressive appearance.

To this end, we have carried out a lot of conceptual creative exploration in the early stage.

We think it needs to live underwater for a long time, so its product attributes may be a fish or a submarine.

It needs to swim at the bottom of the water all the time, and it needs to be able to swim out of the water on its own when necessary. Therefore, its shape must conform to fluid mechanics, which in turn gives it the attributes of an aircraft or a racing car.

It needs to be able to clean the ground with strong kinetic energy at the bottom of the water, and it needs to be able to climb vertical walls to clean the walls. Therefore, it needs to have a huge cleaning roller brush, but also need to have a track or giant tires, in order to provide enough power. This, in turn, gives it some genes for engineering devices.

In the end, we chose this direction. It has a cylindrical fuselage, just like the early aircraft, with a streamlined body, which not only allows it to have flexible mobility underwater, but also has excellent anti-impact suction crawling ability.

At the same time, we added the visual elements of the car, so that the originally very abrupt huge balance handle can be integrated into the entire robot's visual system.

Fluid mechanics analysis.
When the roller brush cleans the ground, the machine needs to cling to the ground and crawl at the bottom of the water. At this time, there will be several important water flow force disturbances: the front water flow resistance, the buoyancy from the bottom when the rolling brush is stirred, and the top water flow disturbance. Of course, the machine will provide power to resist these disturbing water flows. The machine will quickly suck in the water flow from the bottom [the water flow has been stirred by the rolling brush, so it will contain a lot of mud, dust and garbage]. At this time, a certain vacuum will be formed at the bottom, so that the atmosphere There is a downward pressure on the fuselage. At the same time, the machine sprays water from the top to form a reaction force perpendicular to the ground, allowing the ground.

The robot is completely symmetrical before and after, so that it can switch its forward direction at will according to the algorithm. The handle can be rotated 180 degrees back and forth, and the cleaning device is also consistent, which is convenient and two-way cleaning, so strictly speaking, it is partially front and back.

The handle is also the robot's balance float. Its internal space is filled with ultra-light poly dragon foam. when the machine sinks to the bottom, the handle/float will gradually become vertical to balance the fuselage. At the same time, when the machine needs to surface, ensure that the handle can surface first, so that users can easily reach the handle to smoothly pick up the machine.

Vertical climbing wall function: the robot can climb the wall perpendicular to the ground and clean the mud and moss on the wall. This is due to the suction provided by the power of the machine at its bottom, and the reaction force provided by the body when spraying water.

Machine cleaning process and principle. The front and back rolling brushes agitate the ground mud and dust and roll it into the bottom of the machine. The water flow with silt passes through the water inlet at the bottom, is sucked into the dust box, and the water flows through the filter screen, and then is discharged by the top water outlet. Dust and garbage are left inside the dust box by the filter screen.

The scanning area of each radar sensor, and the schematic diagram of the visual dead angle.

Automatic backflush system.

The charging system consists of charging piles, floats, and body parts. Among them, the float is connected to the fuselage, and the float and charging base station have charging electric shock. The charging base station and float are floating on the water, and the charging port is always floating above the water, so that a dry charging environment can be maintained.

When the sensed battery is low, the robot and the float will swim home together to charge. Because there is only a small float on the water, when the robot is working, it will not interfere with the people playing in the pool.

When the robot is used for the first time, it will scan the shape of the swimming pool, build a map, and plan the cleaning path according to the map, so that the swimming pool can be cleaned in the most efficient way without leaving dead corners.

Underwater testing of engineering prototypes during development.

Sport version of the painting, it is relative to the basic model, has a stronger power.

About Spades [SPADE DESIGN]
We are an industrial design team located in Shenzhen
We belong to the millet ecological chain system, of course, we also open services

Spade Design is committed to being the most user-centric design company, and our goal is to exceed people's expectations through innovation in art, software, hardware and services.
Our team is not only passionate about technology, but also relentlessly striving for perfection, breaking down traditions and pushing boundaries to ensure that the products we design are always unique and provide an unparalleled experience.


If you are an excellent designer and agree with our aesthetic concept, you may as well join us.
If you need innovative services and agree with our aesthetic philosophy, please contact us.

rong@spade.ltd