DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Claim Objections
Claim 12 is objected to because of the following informalities: “intertial measurement unit” is claimed. For examination purposes examiner will interpret as “inertial measurement unit”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 8-13, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hoofard et al. (US2019/0064835).
Regarding claim 1: Hoofard discloses a robot or other device capable of movement, comprising a local position module and/or an RF communication module to conduct one or more of navigation, positioning, exploration, tracking, and mapping, the RF communication module being configured to communicate with RF anchor points and the local position module configured to provide relative odometry (Paragraph 0052-0056).
Regarding claim 2: Hoofard discloses wherein the RF communication module is configured to process one or more of coarse-grained RF signal strength (RSSI), and/or fine-grained RF channel state information (CSI), and/or other MAC-layer information in communication with the RF anchor points for the one or more of navigation, positioning, exploration, tracking, and mapping (Paragraph 0052-0053).
Regarding claim 3: Hoofard discloses wherein: the RF communication module comprises a transceiver configured to communicate with fixed location RF anchor points (Paragraph 0052-0056);
the local position module comprises a relative odometry unit (Paragraph 0052-0056); and the robot or other device further comprises,
a localization and navigation system that conducts bearing measurements and/or distance measurements and/or velocity measurements between the robot and one or more of the RF anchor points and integrates these measurements with odometry measurements to navigate an environment (Paragraph 0052-0056).
Regarding claim 4: Hoofard discloses wherein the localization and navigation system conducts mapping of an environment of the RF anchor points from the bearing, distance, velocity measurements using the RF measurements and the odometry measurements (Paragraph 0052-0055).
Regarding claim 8: Hoofard discloses wherein the bearing measurements are conducted over multiple robot poses across time steps to conduct initial mapping of the anchor points (Paragraph 0056).
Regarding claim 9: Hoofard discloses wherein the localization and navigation system ignores anchor point height in conducting the bearing measurements (Paragraph 0056, wherein the system is determining orientation (bearing) in 2D X-Y positional coordinates therefore height Y is being ignored).
Regarding claim 10: Hoofard discloses wherein the bearing measurements are conducted by ping and pong packet exchanges between the robot and the anchor points and time stamping packet exchanges; processing the anchor points as an antenna array to conduct simultaneous localization and mapping of anchor points in the environment (Paragraph 0052-0053).
Regarding claim 11: Hoofard discloses wherein the anchor points comprise RF access points (Paragraph 0052-0053).
Regarding claim 12: As best understood, Hoofard discloses wherein the relative odometry unit comprises Lidar (light detection and ranging), a camera, wheel odometry, inertial measurement unit, accelerometer, and/or gyroscope (Paragraph 0056-0057, Lidar and wheel odometer).
Regarding claim 13: Hoofard discloses wherein the localization and navigation system comprises a sensor fusion unit that integrates measurements from the Lidar and camera with the bearing, range, and/or velocity measurements (Paragraph 0056).
Regarding claim 19: Hoofard discloses a method for controlling a robot or other device capable of movement, the method comprising: obtaining RF measurements from anchor points; obtaining calibration for RF measurements; obtaining local position information; and using the RF measurements and local position information to conduct one or more of navigation, positioning, exploration, tracking, and mapping (Paragraph 0052-0056).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7 and 14-18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael D Lang whose telephone number is (571)270-3213. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 9am-11am and 2pm-6pm.
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/MICHAEL D LANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3667