Inside the box we find the vacuuming robot and all the accessories: base station for the recharge, mains power supply, remote control, two "virtual walls", replacement filters, the wall fixing stirrup, the cleaning tool.
In wrapping are included multilingual manuals, easy to read. The rechargeable battery inserts in the housing with extreme ease. After a complete charge the Roomba is ready to use.

The top side contains the command panel, the infrared positioning sensor, the dust bin unblock button. The bottom side hides the propulsion systems, the sensors, the brushes, the vacuum duct, the battery and the electric contacts for recharging it.
The head of the robot has a mechanism that feels the obstacles when it knocks against them. Thanks to this simple system and the presence of infrared sensors, the Roomba is able to move in the environments and to follow a way, without losing it or leaving unexplored zones. Down side sensors also notice stairs and steps, block the robot and prevent it from falling in the empty space. So, no fears for winding stairs and terraces.

Thanks to the circular and rounded (a disk with diameter of 34 cm), to the absence of protrusions and the reduced thickness (8,5 cm), the Roomba is able to slip below almost any furniture and moves easily among tables and chairs. 

The base station must be set against a wall and allows the Roomba to self-reacharge, when the battery is low or when finished the cycle of cleanliness. The robot, thanks to the infrared navigation technology, is able alone to go back to the base without external interventions.
The battery recharge in 3 hours and supplies about 2 hours of autonomy, enough to clean the most part of rooms.

This vacuum cleaner does not use bags. Dust and crumbs are gathered in the back-side container, endowed with a filter. The bin is removed by pressing the release button and pulling out. The filter slip off with ease and can be washed with running water. Has to be replaced every two months of use.

The wall fixing stirrup offers an excellent system to put the robot back and charge the battery, without wasting space. Compared to a common vacuum cleaner or to an electric broom, the 9 cm of thickness and the 3 Kg of weight of the Roomba, make him really easy to keep at home.

The infrared remote control, manages all the cleaning functions and can move and rotate the robot. This function is useful if we want to carry the clean to a specific zone or in case or if is necessary to unlock jammed wheels.

The virtual wall offers a clever method to limit the space of cleanliness, without the need of closing the doors of the adjacent rooms.
Normally the robot explores the rooms and travels from a room to the other, if it finds the doors opened. Thanks to the virtual walls, an infrared rays barrier is done, blocking the road to Roomba, but not to humans.
In the box there are two virtual walls that can be used together, to have the maximum control of the perimeters. Can be used also to bound big rooms or areas with fragile objects on the floor (for instance a small bricks castle made by our children).
The virtual wall works with two 1,5 Volt "D" type (also called LR20) batteries. After power on (a green LED shows when it is on) is placed on the floor against a wall or near the door jamb. The action range can be acted from 1 to over 3 meters to optimize the power consumption.

Power on and activate this vacuum cleaner is very simple. Big keys show clear informations on the provided functions: "power" is used to turn on and off the unit, "clean" activates the standard cleaning cycle, "spot" is used to clean deeply a narrow zone, "max" cleans up to complete exhaustion of the battery.

The two LEDs "status" and "dirt detect" inform the user about the working state and the presence of intense dirty. The LED surrounding the power key, signal the battery status. Acoustic signals give alarm information about the various robot parts.

To clean correctly a room, is better to position the robot in the central part of the cleaning area. After starting the cleanliness the automaton follows a spirally path and after a complete turn it moves in rectilinear trajectory searching for the walls. The covered trajectories and the self-rotations, answer a precise programming algorithm. The on-board computer, calculates the area to clean and follows the shape of the objects optimizing the space covered and the battery duration.

DEVELOPERS PLATFORM "iRobot Create" For its mechanical and electronic characteristics, the Roomba and its brothers constitute a powerful platform of development for robotics. Having a complete system of navigation and monitoring of the environments, robust and with an excellent center of mass, powered by a big reserve of rechargeable energy, requires years of research and a remarkable planning effort. For this reasons the iRobot USA thought to make available to worlwide universities and developers its robot. Starting from the platform "iRobot Create" is possible to add hardware modules and to program the robot's functions with the computer. Direct link to the platform "iRobot Create" http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=292

THE COMPANY AND THE TECHNOLOGY Founded in 1990 by experts in robotics of the MIT (Massachussets Institute of Technology), the company iRobot produces robot with systems of artificial intelligence, specialized to perform dangerous or repetitive operations in total autonomy. In the field of security, robot with mechanical arms and tracks are used to find and deactivate the explosives. In the military sector, completely automatic vehicles are ready to help soldiers and civilians, with navigation systems, sensors and intelligent video cameras. Vacuum cleaners as the Roomba also use these technologies. The secret is the ease of use bounded with the autonomy of movement, fruit of advanced mechanical and electronic patents.