A strategy for crossing of the robotic travel aid "Harunobu"

Abstract

Since 1982, we have conducted research and development on an autonomous mobile robot, the "Harunobu" series, and studied a robot that travels autonomously on the university campus. In 1995, we started the development of the robotic travel aid application to guide the visually impaired. The robotic travel aid (RoTA) is a motorized wheel chair equipped with vision, sonar and tactile sensors, as well as a map database system. The visually impaired can get mobility, orientation and navigation information from the RoTA. The paper describes a strategy for a crossing of our robotic travel aid "Harunobu". We implemented this strategy on the mobile robot "Harunobu-6". Experimental results in a real environment showed the effectiveness of our proposed strategy.