Formation-Based Tracking Method for Human Following Robot

Mobile robots are widely used in real-world applications, and the interactions between a person and a robot are important. Following a person is one of the interaction functions of mobile robots. To implement this function, most robots track the person from behind. In this case, the person experiences two inconveniences. First, the person often looks back to check whether the robot is following her or him well. Second, it is difficult to operate the robot immediately. In this study, we develop a method that helps a robot follow a person without these inconveniences. A set of candidate goal positions are determined based on the location of a person and the density of obstacles. These positions include a preferred location and a safe location. The robot tracks the goal position that is decided by considering obstacles around itself. This method was tested in a simulation environment. Two performance metrics were defined, and the effectiveness of this method was verified using the metrics.