Socially Acceptable Robot Navigation in the Presence of Humans

Considering the widespread use of mobile robots in different parts of society, it is important to provide them with the capability to behave in a socially acceptable manner. Therefore, a research topic of great importance recently has been the study of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). In this work we propose a methodology to dynamically adapt the robot´s behavior during its navigation considering a possible encounter with humans in the environment. The method is divided into two basic steps. The first one is based upon Computer Vision techniques and executes the recognition and analysis of the scene, considering characteristics such as the presence of humans, quantity, and distance to the robot. Considering the information from the previous stage, the methodology decides whether the navigation should undergo some modification. Among the possible adaptation are changing the current trajectory and reduction in speed. Different trials on a real-world scenario were executed, providing a thorough evaluation and validation of the methodology.