A study on the effect of human proxemics rules in human following by a robot team

Abstract

Considering the greater insertion of mobile robots in social contexts, i.e. in the presence of humans, classical techniques for fundamental tasks, such as navigation, must consider those people. In this sense, it is important to provide these robots with the capability to behave in a more socially acceptable manner. The adoption of socially acceptable behaviors demands a trade-off between social comfort and direct navigation efficiency, since humans must be differentiated from other ordinary objects in the scene. Since the impact of multirobot navigation with a person has not yet been investigated and is incipient in the literature, in this paper it is addressed the specific case in which a person must be followed by a team of robots. Three navigation strategies are proposed to a team of robots built upon a traditional flocking behavior. Evaluation criteria involving social and performance metrics have been adopted. Simulated results suggest that social rules did not hinder the robots performance, resulting in a safer navigation.