Human Tracking with a Mobile Robot using a Laser Range-Finder

Abstract

Human tracking is a fundamental research issue for mobile robot, since coexistence of human and robots is expected in the near future. In this paper, we present a new method for real-time tracking of human walking around a robot using a laser range-finder. The method converts range data with r-θ coordinates to a 2D image with x-y coordinates. Then human tracking is performed using block matching between templates, i.e. appearances of human legs, and the input range data. The view-based human tracking method has the advantage of simplicity over conventional methods which extract local minima in the range data. In addition, the proposed tracking system employs a particle filter to robustly track human in case of occlusions. Experimental results using a real robot demonstrate usefulness of the proposed method.