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Natural person-following behavior for social robots

Published: 10 March 2007 Publication History

Abstract

We are developing robots with socially appropriate spatial skills not only to travel around or near people, but also to accompany people side-by-side. As a step toward this goal, we are investigating the social perceptions of a robot's movement as it follows behind a person. This paper discusses our laser-based person-tracking method and two different approaches to person-following: direction-following and path-following. While both algorithms have similar characteristics in terms of tracking performance and following distances, participants in a pilot study rated the direction-following behavior as significantly more human-like and natural than the path-following behavior. We argue that the path-following method may still be more appropriate in some situations, and we propose that the ideal person-following behavior may be a hybrid approach, with the robot automatically selecting which method to use.

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cover image ACM Conferences
HRI '07: Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-robot interaction
March 2007
392 pages
ISBN:9781595936172
DOI:10.1145/1228716
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 10 March 2007

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Author Tags

  1. human-robot interaction
  2. person following
  3. person tracking
  4. social robots

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HRI07
HRI07: International Conference on Human Robot Interaction
March 10 - 12, 2007
Virginia, Arlington, USA

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HRI '07 Paper Acceptance Rate 22 of 101 submissions, 22%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 268 of 1,124 submissions, 24%

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HRI '25
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
March 4 - 6, 2025
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  • (2024)Conflict Avoidance in Social Navigation—a SurveyACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/364798313:1(1-36)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2024
  • (2024)How Do Robot Experts Measure the Success of Social Robot Navigation?Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/3610978.3640636(1063-1066)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2024
  • (2024)IOT Based Virtual Telepresence Robot2024 Third International Conference on Intelligent Techniques in Control, Optimization and Signal Processing (INCOS)10.1109/INCOS59338.2024.10527639(1-5)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2024
  • (2024)Should I Just Stick to the Wall? Evaluating the Social Acceptance and Preferred Driving Side of Wall FollowingInternational Journal of Social Robotics10.1007/s12369-024-01141-116:7(1693-1705)Online publication date: 5-Jun-2024
  • (2023)Robust Person Identification and Following in a Mobile Robot Based on Deep Learning and Optical TrackingElectronics10.3390/electronics1221442412:21(4424)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2023
  • (2023)Navigation System for Personal Mobility Vehicles Following a Cluster of Pedestrians in a Corridor Using Median of Candidate Vectors ObserverJournal of Robotics and Mechatronics10.20965/jrm.2023.p156235:6(1562-1572)Online publication date: 20-Dec-2023
  • (2023)Path Planning Using a Flow of Pedestrian Traffic in an Unknown EnvironmentJournal of Robotics and Mechatronics10.20965/jrm.2023.p146035:6(1460-1468)Online publication date: 20-Dec-2023
  • (2023)Core Challenges of Social Robot Navigation: A SurveyACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/358374112:3(1-39)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2023
  • (2023)Walk With Me: Socially Acceptable Speed and Distance Control for Mobile Wayfinding Robots2023 IEEE International Conference on Imaging Systems and Techniques (IST)10.1109/IST59124.2023.10355692(1-6)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2023
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