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A framework for adaptive motion control of autonomous sociable guide robot
Author(s) -
Zhang Bin,
Nakamura Tomoaki,
Kaneko Masahide
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
ieej transactions on electrical and electronic engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.254
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1931-4981
pISSN - 1931-4973
DOI - 10.1002/tee.22304
Subject(s) - task (project management) , robot , computer science , path (computing) , mobile robot , human–computer interaction , motion (physics) , social robot , control (management) , motion planning , robot control , artificial intelligence , adaptive behavior , autonomous robot , simulation , engineering , systems engineering , psychology , psychiatry , programming language
We present a framework by which the motion of an autonomous mobile guide robot is adaptively controlled. A sociable robot should adapt its speed and path to suit the users' activities, without restricting the user movement. By generating adaptive artificial potential fields for the users and the subgoal separately, and integrating them with the basic potential fields generated from obstacles, our robot can adapt to the users' activities and provide sociable tour‐guide services. The robot predicts a user's moving speed and adapts to it to maintain the social distance. Moreover, with the proposed framework, users can deviate from the guided path temporarily and return to the original task afterward. Instead of waiting for the users and taking the risk of losing them, the robot deviates from its original path to follow the users and also prepares for returning to the guiding task. The robot restarts the guiding task at that place, which ensures the least cost to reach the goal. Simulation and experimental results show that our framework can automatically generate suitable motion patterns to control the robot adaptively, making it sociable while providing tour guide services. © 2016 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.