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Many mobile robotics applications require robots to navigate around humans who may interpret the robot’s motion in terms of social attitudes and intentions. It is essential to understand which aspects of the robot’s motion are related to such perceptions so that we may design appropriate navigation algorithms. Current works in social navigation tend to strive towards a single ideal style of motion defined with respect to concepts such as comfort, naturalness, or legibility. These algorithms cannot be configured to alter trajectory features to control the social interpretations made by humans. In this work, we firstly present logistic regression models based on perception experiments linking human perceptions to a corpus of linear velocity profiles, establishing that various trajectory features impact human social perception of the robot. Secondly, we formulate a trajectory planning problem in the form of a constrained optimization, using novel constraints that can be selectively applied to shape the trajectory such that it generates the desired social perception. We demonstrate the ability of the proposed algorithm to accurately change each of the features of the generated trajectories based on the selected constraints, enabling subtle variations in the robot’s motion to be consistently applied. By controlling the trajectories to induce different social perceptions, we provide a tool to better tailor the robot’s actions to its role and deployment context to enhance acceptability.

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology is now becoming the main tool in many applications such as autonomous driving and human–robot collaboration. Point-cloud-based 3D object detection is becoming popular and widely accepted in the industry and everyday life due to its effectiveness for cameras in challenging environments. In this paper, we present a modular approach to detect, track and classify persons using a 3D LiDAR sensor. It combines multiple principles: a robust implementation for object segmentation, a classifier with local geometric descriptors, and a tracking solution. Moreover, we achieve a real-time solution in a low-performance machine by reducing the number of points to be processed by obtaining and predicting regions of interest via movement detection and motion prediction without any previous knowledge of the environment. Furthermore, our prototype is able to successfully detect and track persons consistently even in challenging cases due to limitations on the sensor field of view or extreme pose changes such as crouching, jumping, and stretching. Lastly, the proposed solution is tested and evaluated in multiple real 3D LiDAR sensor recordings taken in an indoor environment. The results show great potential, with particularly high confidence in positive classifications of the human body as compared to state-of-the-art approaches.

Industry 4.0 transforms classical industrial systems into more human-centric and digitized systems. Close human–robot collaboration is becoming more frequent, which means security and efficiency issues need to be carefully considered. In this paper, we propose to equip robots with exteroceptive sensors and online motion generation so that the robot is able to perceive and predict human trajectories and react to the motion of the human in order to reduce the occurrence of the collisions. The dataset for training is generated in a real environment in which a human and a robot are sharing their workspace. An Encoder–Decoder based network is proposed to predict the human hand trajectories. A Model Predictive Control (MPC) framework is also proposed, which is able to plan a collision-free trajectory in the shared workspace based on this human motion prediction. The proposed framework is validated in a real environment that ensures collision free collaboration between humans and robots in a shared workspace.

In this paper, we propose a new method based on Hidden Markov Models to interpret temporal sequences of sensor data from mobile robots to automatically detect features. Hidden Markov Models have been used for a long time in pattern recognition, especially in speech recognition. Their main advantages over other methods (such as neural networks) are their ability to model noisy temporal signals of variable length. We show in this paper that this approach is well suited for interpretation of temporal sequences of mobile-robot sensor data. We present two distinct experiments and results: the first one in an indoor environment where a mobile robot learns to detect features like open doors or T- intersections, the second one in an outdoor environment where a different mobile robot has to identify situations like climbing a hill or crossing a rock.

To reach a given goal, a mobile robot first computes a motion plan (ie a sequence of actions that will take it to its goal), and then executes it. Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have been successfully used to solve these two problems. Their main advantage is that they provide a theoretical framework to deal with the uncertainties related to the robot's motor and perceptive actions during both planning and execution stages. This paper describes a navigation approach using an MDP-based planning method and Markov Localisation. The planning method uses a hierarchic representation of the robot's state space. Besides, the actions used better integrate the kinematic constraints of a wheeled mobile robot. These two features yield a motion planner more efficient and better suited to plan robust motion strategies. Also, this paper focuses on the experimental aspects related to the use of Markov Techniques with a particular emphasis on how two key elements were obtained by learning, namely the transition function (that encodes the uncertainties related to the robot actions) and the sensor model. Experiments carried out with a real robot demonstrate the robustness of the whole navigation approach.

In this paper, we propose a new method based on Hidden Markov Models to interpret temporal sequences of sensor data from mobile robots to automatically detect features. Hidden Markov Models have been used for a long time in pattern recognition, especially in speech recognition. Their main advantages over other methods (such as neural networks) are their ability to model noisy temporal signals of variable length. We show in this paper that this approach is well suited for interpretation of temporal sequences of mobile-robot sensor data. We present two distinct experiments and results: the first one in an indoor environment where a mobile robot learns to detect features like open doors or T-intersections, the second one in an outdoor environment where a different mobile robot has to identify situations like climbing a hill or crossing a rock.