The vocabulary of robotic floor cleaning

Mobile vehicle that follows a predefined route marked on the floor (magnetic tape, rail, markers) or by fixed reference points. Reliable on a fixed circuit, but inflexible when something unexpected gets in the way. It is the generation that preceded the AMR, which navigates freely without floor markers.

Robot that moves through an environment on its own, computing its route and steering around obstacles with its sensors and SLAM. Unlike an AGV, it follows no fixed circuit and adapts to change. Autonomous cleaning robots are AMRs.

Documented interface that lets third-party software (CMMS, facility management platform, client dashboard) read a cleaning robot's data, such as runs, areas covered, alerts and maps, and sometimes send it instructions. Without an API the data stays inside the manufacturer's app; with one, the client can consolidate and export it. A quarter of the models on the market publish one.

Rapid cleanliness check that measures ATP, a molecule present in biological residues, by bioluminescence. The result, expressed in relative light units (RLU), gives an objective indication of surface contamination within seconds. Widely used in food processing and healthcare to validate cleaning and disinfection.

Station where an autonomous sweeper or vacuum docks to transfer the contents of its hopper automatically, then resumes its route. It turns the machine into a full-cycle robot (charge, empty, resume) and removes the main constraint of overnight robotic sweeping: emptying the hopper by hand. Rare on sweepers, it is the counterpart of the water stations used by scrubbers. Pudu announced one in September 2026 for its MT1 and MT1 Max.

Autonomous vacuum sized for commercial floor areas: autonomous navigation, large-capacity bins, fine-dust filtration, use around the public or working teams. It handles diffuse dust through repeated passes, alongside the manual industrial vacuum that stays at the workstation.

Cleaning machine that scrubs and dries hard floors in a single pass (brush plus recovery of the dirty water) and, in its autonomous version, moves on its own along a programmed route. It is the most common type of robot for large floor areas.

The robot's ability to move on its own along an optimised route, steer around unexpected obstacles and resume its task after recharging, with no remote control or floor rail. It relies on mapping and on sensors (LiDAR, vision).

Robot that sweeps commercial floors on its own: side brushes push debris and dust into an on-board hopper, with LiDAR navigation and programmed routes. Not to be confused with mechanical sweeper attachments for forklifts, sometimes called "autonomous" because they need no hydraulic connection, but driven entirely by the forklift operator.

Textile floor covering, comfortable and sound-absorbing, common in offices and hotels. Its upkeep relies on regular vacuuming and, periodically, shampooing or hot water extraction. Some autonomous scrubbers also handle short-pile carpet.

Handing repetitive, programmable cleaning tasks to autonomous machines, floor cleaning first of all: scheduled runs, robotic execution, automatic reporting. In the cobotic model the task is automated, not the team: operatives programme and supervise the robots and keep the areas that call for judgement.

Floor area an operative or a machine covers in one hour for a given task: 150 to 250 m²/h in offices, 400 to 600 m²/h with flat mopping in clear corridors, 800 to 1,500 m²/h with a scrubber-dryer, 700 to 2,000 m²/h for a scrubbing robot, 60 to 100 m²/h in washrooms. It is the real basis of any quotation: area ÷ rate = time; the price per m² follows from it.

Measure of what a cleaning expense brings back against what it costs: time saved, area covered, consistency, floor lifespan, the image of the premises. For robotic cleaning, the cost of the service is compared with the operative time redeployed to supervision, finishing work and client contact. The reasoning is laid out in the ROI article.

The ability to prove what was cleaned, when, where and how. Robots contribute by logging areas covered, times and routes, which can be reviewed and exported. Objective data, where control used to rest mostly on what was declared.

Robot designed to work alongside a human, in the same space, without a safety enclosure. The term was coined in 1996 by J. Edward Colgate and Michael Peshkin (Northwestern University) for a handling-assistance device; it first referred to collaborative industrial arms (ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066), then by extension to mobile service robots that share space with people. It gave rise to the word cobotics.

Cooperation between a robot and a human operator on the same task. The robot takes the repetitive, physically demanding part (scrubbing large open floor areas); the human keeps what a machine cannot do: judging, finishing, spotting an incident, welcoming people. It is the principle behind the Easy to Clean service: the robot covers the large open areas, your team keeps the finishing work, edges and sensitive areas.

Convention that assigns an equipment colour to each type of area (often red for washrooms, blue for furniture, green for food areas, yellow for wash basins) to prevent cross-contamination.

How long a detergent-disinfectant must stay on the surface to act, as stated by the manufacturer. It is the most frequently neglected figure in cleaning protocols, and the first one checked in a hygiene audit: a disinfectant wiped off too early has not disinfected.

Transfer of soil or germs from one surface to another by the cleaning equipment itself: a cloth that goes from the toilet to the wash basin, a mop head that moves to another area. The safeguards: colour coding, the "cleanest to dirtiest" rule and equipment dedicated to each area (one cloth per room in healthcare).

Chemical and mechanical treatment specific to marble and limestone: a product reacts with the calcium carbonate in the stone under the action of a single-disc machine fitted with a suitable pad. The surface hardens and regains a lasting shine with no film deposited, since it is the stone itself that shines. Limited to calcareous stone, unlike polishing.

Two-in-one product that cleans and disinfects in a single operation. It saves time, but is less controlled than a two-step protocol where the surface is cleaned with a detergent before being disinfected. The detergent removes soil, the disinfectant kills micro-organisms: two distinct functions.

Destroying or inactivating the micro-organisms on a surface with a biocidal product applied under controlled conditions (clean surface, dosage, contact time). It comes after cleaning: only a surface that is already clean can be properly disinfected. A key step in healthcare cleaning and in HACCP protocols. On floors it can be carried out regularly, with full traceability, by scrubbing and disinfecting robots working alongside the cleaning team.

Base the robot returns to on its own to recharge and, depending on the model, refill with clean water, drain the dirty water and empty its waste. It lets the robot chain cycles with minimal intervention.

Standardised classification of commercial vacuum cleaners by the hazard of the dust they handle: L for low-hazard dust, M for wood and construction dust, H for hazardous dust (silica, asbestos). It governs the choice of an industrial vacuum according to the site's process.

Manual floor cleaning technique using a flat mop frame and a damp microfibre mop head charged with a measured detergent solution, moved in a continuous figure-of-eight. It replaced the string mop and bucket because it cleans with little water, dries fast and does not carry contamination from one room to the next. Two variants: the two-bucket method and pre-impregnated mop heads.

Coordinated control of several robots from a single interface: status monitoring, cycle scheduling, alerts and real-time indicators. It makes it possible to cover large sites or several buildings while keeping an overview. See cleaning traceability.

The number and type of robots needed to cover a site, derived from the robot-cleanable area, observed productivity, the usable shift and the number of floors; it comes with the remaining operative hours for what the robot does not do. It is estimated with the fleet-sizing simulator and confirmed during an on-site demonstration, on the site's own floors.

Mobile robot that scrubs floors autonomously, following a route it computes itself. It generally combines a scrubber-dryer with autonomous navigation. Suited to large, regular floor areas such as retail stores or warehouses.

Method for controlling food safety hazards: hazards are identified, critical control points are set and the measures taken are documented. Cleaning and disinfection of floors and surfaces play a central part. It relies on a cleaning plan and its traceability.

Very high efficiency filters that retain fine particles and allergens. On a vacuum robot, H11 filtration, or HEPA H13 as an option, ensures that the dust picked up stays captured instead of being blown back into the air. A decisive criterion wherever indoor air quality is at stake.

Deep cleaning of a carpet: a detergent solution is injected under pressure into the fibre and immediately extracted, along with the soil, by the same machine. It requires prior vacuuming, pre-treatment, precise dosing, slow passes that do not saturate the carpet, lifting the pile and six to twelve hours of complete drying. Once or twice a year.

International safety standard, published in 2021, for automatic floor treatment machines for commercial use. It supplements IEC 60335-2-72 with the requirements specific to autonomy: detection of people, low obstacles and drops, speeds and stopping distances, signalling, emergency stop, behaviour on failure, and the associated tests. Its declaration of conformity is the document to ask for before operating a robot around the public.

Installations that capture dust at the point of emission: extraction arms, hoods, duct networks and centralised dust collectors, up to ATEX requirements. They treat the air at the source; the fraction that escapes settles on the floor, where it becomes a matter of floor dust removal.

A cleaning robot's ability to exchange with its surroundings: the building's lifts and doors, the client's software through an API, other robots (fleet management, VDA 5050) and its manufacturer (over-the-air updates, online reports). It determines what a robot can cover, what it reports and what it will be worth in three years; after safety, it is the least documented criterion on the market.

Sensor that measures distances with a laser beam to map the environment and detect obstacles in real time. Combined with vision, it lets the robot navigate without floor markers (no QR codes) and stop safely near people.

Guiding a robot from a LiDAR sensor, which measures distances with laser beams to draw the space around the machine. The robot detects walls, obstacles and openings and adjusts its path in real time. Combined with SLAM, it lets the robot move without rails or floor markers.

Digital representation of a space that a robot builds from its sensors in order to move through it: walls, obstacles and areas to clean. It is created and updated in real time as the robot travels, with no plan supplied in advance. The methods that produce it are SLAM and VSLAM.

Scrubbing floors with a machine (scrubber-dryer or single-disc machine) rather than with a mop and bucket. It gives a more consistent result, faster, with better drying on large areas. It is the core of cleaning mechanisation, the step before cleaning automation.

Textile made of very fine fibres that picks up dust and micro-organisms by mechanical action, with less product and less water. Microfibre cloths and mop heads, often colour-coded, prevent cross-contamination. A standard of low-impact cleaning and of healthcare cleaning.

A robot's ability to spot people, objects and changes in level in its path in real time, so as to stop or steer around them. It relies on the fusion of several sensors (LiDAR, cameras, ultrasonic). It is a safety precondition for cobotic cleaning among building occupants.

A robot's ability to receive new functions and software fixes without an on-site visit. This is what improved the navigation, detection and spot cleaning of robots between 2022 and 2026, and what separates a five-year-old robot that still performs from one that is out of date. Ask how long updates are committed for before signing.

Preventive: periodic servicing to prevent breakdowns. Corrective: repair when an incident occurs. In the Easy to Clean full-service contract, both are included, with a 72-hour replacement guarantee if a fault immobilises the robot.

Model in which you pay for the use of a robot as a subscription rather than buying it. The supplier remains responsible for the hardware, maintenance, updates and continuity of service. It is the logic behind robotic cleaning offered as a full-service contract.

The share of a site's floors a robot can handle on its own: flat, open areas, excluding edges, skirting boards, washrooms, stairs, cluttered zones and small rooms. It ranges from 60% in cellular offices to 90% on a clear logistics floor; the rest falls to the operative, in the cobotic split.

Machine that scrubs and dries hard floors in a single pass: it lays down solution, brushes, then recovers the dirty water behind it. The floor is clean and walkable immediately. Operated by a cleaning operative or in an autonomous version, it is the basic tool of mechanised scrubbing.

Maintenance machine with a single rotating deck, fitted with the pad or brush the job requires: scrubbing, stripping, polishing or crystallisation. Its rotation speed (low, high or ultra-high) is chosen for the task and the floor covering. It is the all-round tool for floor restoration.

Model that describes the four interdependent levers of effective cleaning: mechanical action, chemical action (product), temperature and time. Reducing one means increasing another to obtain the same result.

Method by which a robot builds the map of an unknown place while tracking its own position in it, at the same time. It allows navigation with no floor markers or GPS, from on-board sensors alone. It is the foundation of the autonomous navigation of cleaning robots.

Mode in which a robot, instead of covering the whole area, goes to the soiling it detects, visible debris or dirty patches, which multiplies the area handled per hour. A hallmark of recent autonomous sweepers, useful on sites where soiling is localised: loading docks, entrances, unloading areas.

Periodic maintenance of a floor protected by a polymer emulsion: a diluted restoring product is sprayed over small areas and a high-speed single-disc machine with a soft pad is run over it; micro-scratches close up and the film regains its shine without stripping. Monthly in corridors, quarterly in rooms.

Cleaning with pressurised steam, which loosens soil and reduces the microbial load with very little or no chemical product. Valued for sensitive areas and low-impact cleaning. More of a spot treatment than mechanised scrubbing on large areas.

Taking a floor back to bare: the old protective layers (polymer emulsion, wax, metallised finish) and ingrained soil are removed. A stripper is applied and worked in with a single-disc machine, then the floor is rinsed and neutralised before being protected again. It is restoration work, not routine maintenance.

Total cost of owning a cleaning robot over its useful life, generally five years: purchase or rental, station and accessories, commissioning, maintenance and parts, consumables, battery, operator time, water and energy, less residual value. It is the unit that makes it possible to compare purchase, rental and a service contract, and to set the robot against the floor hours it absorbs.

Manual mopping technique using two buckets, one for the clean detergent solution and one for the wrung-out dirty water, so that the cleaned surface is not recontaminated.

Machine that combines brush sweeping and filtered vacuuming in the same pass: the brushes push debris towards the hopper while the vacuum captures fine dust without stirring it back into the air. In robotic form, it bridges autonomous sweeping and autonomous vacuuming.

Standardised interface published in 2019 by the German automotive industry association (VDA) and the materials handling manufacturers (VDMA), which lets a central control system command mobile robots from different manufacturers. A reference in logistics; in cleaning, only a handful of models claim it. See interoperability.

Variant of SLAM that relies on cameras rather than on a laser rangefinder alone. Vision provides rich, dense information for recognising the environment and locating the robot. Many robots combine VSLAM and LiDAR to make navigation more reliable.

A central concern of sustainable floor care: scrubbing effectively with less water and less product. Automatic dosing to the millilitre and solution recycling cut volumes substantially compared with manual mopping. A tangible benefit of robotic scrubbing.

Removing dust from the floor with a slightly damp gauze or mop head, which captures dust instead of stirring it up as a conventional broom does. It is the first step before any scrubbing. On large areas, a pass with a scrubber-dryer or a sweeper replaces it.