Abstract
This paper presents a trajectory planning method enabling autonomous robots to approach people in dynamic environments to initiate a conversation proactively. It is shown how integrating human inspired parameters in optimal control based motion planning enables people to predict and read the purpose of a motion more easily.
Experimental evaluations in literature propose to incorporate human-like aspects since the intended action becomes more comprehensible for humans. Therefore, factors like approach speed, distance to the person, positioning near the person, trajectory shape, and the avoidance method are adopted from human behavior to generate motions. The presented trajectory planner is designed to improve the human-like appearance of an approach motion implementing these aspects. Human-likeness is evaluated according to naturalness and comfort of the approach behavior. By executing corresponding trajectories, the approach movement appears more natural and the intended action is easier to predict for humans.
This paper formulates the motion planning procedure as an optimal control problem. Human-like behavior is generated through specific constraints and cost. In order to achieve correct timing, appropriate trajectory shape and the desired behavior for collision avoidance in a dynamic environment, the optimization is split into three consecutive steps. An implementation of a planning algorithm for dynamic environments, capable of online replanning, is proposed. Experiments conducted with this system showed the appropriateness of speed and distance parameters. Further statistical results confirmed that the shape of a trajectory significantly affects the naturalness of an approach motion.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Arechavaleta, G., Laumond, J., Hicheur, H., Berthoz, A.: The nonholonomic nature of human locomotion: a modeling study. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, pp. 158–163 (2006)
Bauer, A., Klasing, K., Lidoris, G., Mühlbauer, Q., Rohrmüller, F., Sosnowski, S., Xu, T., Kühnlenz, K., Wollherr, D., Buss, M.: The autonomous city explorer: Towards natural human-robot interaction in urban environments. Int. Journal of Social Robotics 1(2), 127–140 (2009)
Bennewitz, M., Burgard, W., Thrun, S.: Learning motion patterns of persons for mobile service robots. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp. 3601–3606 (2002)
Breazeal, C., Kidd, C.D., Thomaz, A.L., Hoffman, G., Berlin, M.: Effects of nonverbal communication on efficiency and robustness in human-robot teamwork. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 708–713 (2005)
Buss, M., Carton, D., Gonsior, B., Kuehnlenz, K., Landsiedel, C., Mitsou, N., de Nijs, R., Zlotowski, J., Sosnowski, S., Strasser, E., Tscheligi, M., Weiss, A., Wollherr, D.: Towards proactive human-robot interaction in human environments. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Cognitive Infocommunications, pp. 1–6 (2011)
Choi, J.-W., Curry, R., Elkaim, G.H.: Path planning based on bezier curve for autonomous ground vehicles. In: Advances in Electrical and Electronics Engineering - IAENG Special Edition of WCECS, pp. 158–166 (2008)
Choi, J.-W., Curry, R., Elkaim, G.H.: Smooth path generation based on bezier curves for autonomous vehicles. In: Lecture Notes in Engineering and Computer Science: Proc. of WCECS, pp. 668–673 (2009)
Choi, J.-W., Curry, R., Elkaim, G.H.: Piecewise bezier curves path planning with continuous curvature constraint for autonomous driving. In: Machine Learning and Systems Engineering. LNEE, vol. 68 (2010)
Elnagar, A.: Prediction of moving objects in dynamic environments using kalman filters. In: IEEE Int. Symp. on Computational Intel. in Robotics and Automation, pp. 414–419 (2001)
Farin, G.E.: Curves and surfaces for CAGD: a practical guide, 5th edn. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers - Academic Press (2002)
Ferguson, D., Howard, T.M., Likhachev, M.: Motion planning in urban environments. In: The DARPA Urban Challenge, pp. 61–89 (2009)
Fiorini, P., Shiller, Z.: Time optimal trajectory planning in dynamic environments. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp. 1553–1558 (1996)
Fraichard, T.: Trajectory Planning in Dynamic Workspace: a ‘State-Time Space’ Approach. Technical Report RR-3545, INRIA (1998)
Foka, A.F., Trahanias, P.E.: Predictive autonomous robot navigation. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 490–495 (2002)
Hall, E.T.: The Hidden Dimension: Man’s Use of Space in Public and Private. The Bodley Head Ltd., London (1966)
Huttenrauch, H., Severinson Eklundh, K., Green, A., Topp, E.A., Christensen, H.I.: What’s in the gap? Interaction transitions that make HRI work. In: Int. Symp. on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, pp. 123–128 (2006)
Kessler, J., Schröter, C., Gross, H.-M.: Approaching a person in a socially acceptable manner using a fast marching planner. In: ICIRA, pp. 368–377 (2011)
Kruse, T., Basili, P., Glasauer, S., Kirsch, A.: Legible robot navigation in the proximity of moving humans. In: Proc. Int. Workshop ARSO, pp. 83–88 (2012)
Latombe, J.-C.: Robot Motion Planning. Kluwer Academic Publishers (1991)
LaValle, S.M.: Planning Algorithms. Cambridge University Press (2006)
Masehian, E., Katebi, Y.: Robot motion planning in dynamic environments with moving obstacles and target. Int. Journal of Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering, 20–25 (2007)
Satake, S., Kanda, T., Glas, D., Imai, M., Ishiguro, H., Hagita, N.: How to approach humans? - strategies for social robots to initiate interaction. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Human Robot Interaction, pp. 109–116 (2009)
Schulz, D., Burgard, W., Fox, D., Cremers, A.B.: Tracking multiple moving targets with a mobile robot using particle filters and statistical data association. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp. 1665–1670 (2001)
Sisbot, E.A., Alami, R., Simeon, T., Dautenhahn, K., Walters, M., Woods, S., Koay, K.L., Nehaniv, C.: Navigation in the presence of humans. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Humanoid Robots, pp. 181–188 (2005)
Sisbot, E., Marin-Urias, L., Alami, R., Simeon, T.: A human aware mobile robot motion planner. Trans. on Robotics, 874–883 (2007)
Sisbot, E., Marin-Urias, L., Broqure, X., Sidobre, D., Alami, R.: Synthesizing robot motions adapted to human presence. Int. Journal of Social Robotics 2, 329–343 (2010)
Shiller, Z., Gal, O., Raz, A.: Adaptive time horizon for on-line avoidance in dynamic environments. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 3539–3544 (2011)
Shiomi, M., Kanda, T., Glas, D., Satake, S., Ishiguro, H., Hagita, N.: Who will be the customer?: A social robot that anticipates people’s behavior from their trajectories. field trial of networked social robots in a shopping mall. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 2846–2853 (2009)
Svenstrup, M., Tranberg, S., Andersen, H.J., Bak, T.: Pose estimation and adaptive robot behaviour for human-robot interaction. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp. 3571–3576 (2009)
Takayama, L., Dooley, D., Ju, W.: Expressing thought: improving robot readability with animation principles. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on HRI, pp. 69–76 (2011)
Thompson, S., Horiuchi, T., Kagami, S.: A probabilistic model of human motion and navigation intent for mobile robot path planning. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Autonomous Robots and Agents, pp. 663–668 (2009)
Walters, M., Dautenhahn, K., Koay, K., Kaouri, C., te Boekhorst, R., Nehaniv, C., Werry, I., Lee, D.: Close encounters: Spatial distances between people and a robot of mechanistic appearance. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Humanoid Robots, pp. 450–455 (2005)
Walters, M., Koay, K., Woods, S., Syrdal, D., Dautenhahn, K.: Robot to human approaches: preliminary results on comfortable distances and preferences. In: Symp. Multidisciplinary Collaboration for Socially Assistive Robotics, pp. 103–109 (2007)
Wilkie, D., van den Berg, J., Manocha, D.: Generalized velocity obstacles. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 5573–5578 (2009)
Woo, H.J., Park, S.B., Kim, J.H.: Research of the optimal path planning methods for unmanned ground vehicle in darpa urban challenge. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Control, Automation and Systems, pp. 586–589 (2008)
Woods, S., Walters, M., Koay, K., Dautenhahn, K.: Methodological issues in HRI: A comparison of live and video-based methods in robot to human approach direction trials. In: Proc. Int. Symp. on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, pp. 109–116 (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Carton, D., Turnwald, A., Wollherr, D., Buss, M. (2013). Proactively Approaching Pedestrians with an Autonomous Mobile Robot in Urban Environments. In: Desai, J., Dudek, G., Khatib, O., Kumar, V. (eds) Experimental Robotics. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 88. Springer, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00065-7_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00065-7_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-00064-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-00065-7
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)