Abstract
We are developing a robot that moves along a handrail and guide a visitor in a building such as a hospital. When guiding a visitor, we propose a method to control this robot so that it precedes the visitor at a short distance. We examine two methods: one is a method to keep a fixed distance from the person, and the other one is a method where the robot keeps moving slowly even when the robot and the person is distant. We evaluated these methods using the handrail-moving robot. The initial distance between the robot and the participant was 0.5m. We observed whether the participants followed the robot after the robot's announcement, and then we asked the participants to answer a questionnaire. As a result, all participants followed the robot regardless of the controlling method, and the subjective evaluation result was better for the controlling method where the robot kept fixed distance from the participant.
