Portal:Robotics/Featured robot/3

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Roomba is a robotic vacuum cleaner made and sold by iRobot. It is marketed as a Robotic Floorvac. The Roomba was first released in 2002 with updates and new models released in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. As of May 2006, over 2 million units have been sold, making it the most successful domestic robot so far. The unit is a disc, thirteen inches (34 cm) in diameter and less than four inches (9 cm) high. A large contact-sensing bumper is mounted on the front half of the unit, with an infrared sensor at its top front center.

The Roomba operates with internal nickel metal hydride batteries and requires being recharged regularly from a wall plug, although newer third-generation models have a self-charging homebase they automatically try to find. Charging on the homebase takes about three hours. All third-generation Roombas can be used with the homebase, even if they do not come packaged with it. First and second-generation models came packaged with a twelve-hour charger, although a three-hour rapid charger could also be used with them.