Human-Following Control of Omnidirectional Autonomous Mobile Robot by Integrating Sensor Information

In Japan, super-aging is progressing rapidly, and it is necessary for the target people, including healthy people, to be monitored by robots. Therefore, in this paper, we develop a small robot that can move in all directions and can follow people in an indoor environment. This robot has an infrared thermal sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, and five ranging sensors. In addition, by adopting an omni-wheel for the drive system, it is possible to move and enter narrow spaces. In particular, the posture control of the robot is realized by the geomagnetic sensor, and the stable straight running is achieved. In addition, we confirmed that the infrared heat sensor can measure human body temperature and show that it can be applied to human tracking control method. We define three modes according to the distance to the object in the human-tracking algorithm, and clarify that each mode works well in the tracking motion.