Identification of Potential Conflict Zones Between Pedestrians and Mobile Robots in Urban Situations

Abstract

There is great application potential for mobile robots that move along sidewalks, footpaths and cycle paths. At the same time, the legal framework for their operation is currently lacking, so that a realistic evaluation of the suitable characteristics of a robot, its behavior, and the resulting acceptance by the population is still pending. The currently running project RoboTraces aims to fill this gap and classifies the behavior of people during encounters with autonomous systems in everyday life. For this purpose, a multi-month study is currently being conducted in which a robot moves through Freiberg, a medium-size city with 40,000 inhabitants in Central Europe. We are recording the reactions of passers-by, classifying them according to the context of the situation and assessing their significance for the planning of movement corridors for small mobile systems.