Personal robot assisting transportation to support active human life — Human-following method based on model predictive control for adjacency without collision

An aging society exists throughout the entire world. In order to support the aging society, service robots that are able to improve our comfortable lifestyle and increase longevity have been developed. However, excessive and premature robot support may cause not only the deterioration of our physical ability but also shortening of the period of well-being. In our research group, a personal robot that can carry baggage and automatically follow a human being was developed to overcome the above problem. The people that use this personal robot will be able to walk outside with empty hands, even after shopping, thus contributing to their health management. In this paper, the past prototypes of the personal robot are discussed, and the new robot is presented. Also, a human-following method based on model predictive control is proposed to realize the contradicting requirements of both shortening the relative distance between the owner and the robot and ensuring no collision. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified by numerical simulation of the prototype robot.