2P1-J06 People Tracking and Target Following Method for an Outdoor Mobile Robot with LRF and Omni-Directional Camera(Vision System for Mobile Robot)

Abstract

This paper investigates a method to recognize people and follow target person for a mobile robot that moves in outdoor environment. Laser scanner and omni-directional camera were used as sensors to detect multiple people. For efficient tracking, a new association algorithm based on Mahalanobis distance, which utilizes information from both sensors, was proposed. Experimental results using the developed mobile robot system were presented.