Human-following robot using infrared camera

Human-following robots have been researched and developed actively these decades due to its plentiful applications in daily life and manufacturing. A human-following robot requires several techniques such as human´s target detection, robot control algorithm and obstacles avoidance. Various approaches of following robots have been proposed such as using ultrasonic sensors, voice recognition sensors, laser range sensors, charge-coupled device (CCD) camera and so on. These technologies detect the relative position between a mobile robot and a human. In this paper, we present a new approach in detecting position of a mobile robot using an infrared camera which is the basic technique in human following robot. In our experiment, a Wii camera, which captures four groups of IR-LEDs installed on the robot, is attached on a human. A simple application implemented in real time using a PI controller shows some advantages of the proposed method.