Path Planning to Respect Human Behaviors Based on Human Frequency Map for a Mobile Robot

Abstract

Recently, the activity of a robot in the environment where a person lies is expected. The robot has to not only complete the given tasks but also care about the parson when the robot works with the person in the same environment. However, it is difficult to acquire the information on the environment by only using sensors mounted on the robot. Assume here that the sensors are distributed in the environmental side, and human's walking route is observed. The human's walking route is safe also for the robot because the human avoids obstacles. In this research, observed human positions are used for the path planning of the robot. In addition, a "Human Frequency Map (HFM)" is proposed, where it is a grid map based on the observed human position and frequency in a term. In addition to the current position of human, the possibility of encounting human and the width of passage can be considered by using the HFM. Finally, we achieve a path planning considering the human activity.