Modeling a Social Placement Cost to Extend Navigation Among Movable Obstacles (NAMO) Algorithms

Abstract

Current Navigation Among Movable Obstacles (NAMO) algorithms focus on finding a path for the robot that only optimizes the displacement cost of navigating and moving obstacles out of its way. However, in a human environment, this focus may lead the robot to leave the space in a socially inappropriate state that may hamper human activity (i.e. by blocking access to doors, corridors, rooms or objects of interest). In this paper, we tackle this problem of "Social Placement Choice" by building a social occupation costmap, built using only geometrical information. We present how existing NAMO algorithms can be extended by exploiting this new cost map. Then, we show the effectiveness of this approach with simulations, and provide additional evaluation criteria to assess the social acceptability of plans.