Social Norm Based Collision Avoidance in Human-Robot Coexistence Environment

Abstract

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When pedestrians and a mobile robot pass each other in a corridor, it is important for a robot to make an appropriate path in order not to confuse pedestrians. This paper presents a new path planning method where the mobile robot follows the rule of “eeping to the right.” Three kinds of maps based on laser range finder data are used in the path planning. One is a global cost map made by a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technique, that expresses a whole environment and is used to make a path from a start position to a goal. Another is a local cost map, that is used for avoiding obstacles near the mobile robot. The other is an attractive force cost map proposed in this paper, that makes the robot keep to the right along a corridor. When there is no pedestrian, the mobile robot goes to a goal position indicated by an operator based on the global cost map while avoiding moving obstacles based on the local cost map in real time. When the robot detects pedestrians, it begins to keep to the right. This method where the robot follows a social norm depending on each country can make a pedestrian pass by the mobile robot more smoothly. Some experimental results reveal the validity of our proposed path planning method.