Human detecting and following mobile robot using a laser range sensor

To meet the higher requirements of human-machine interface technology, a robot with human-following capability, a classic but significant problem, is discussed in this paper. We first propose a human detection method that uses only a single laser range scanner to detect the waist of the target person. Second, owing to the limited speed of a robot and the potential risk of obstructions, a new human-following algorithm is proposed. The speed and acceleration of a robot are adaptive to the human-walking speed and the distance between the human and robot. Finally, the performance of the proposed control system is successfully verified through a set of experimental results obtained using a two-wheelmobile robot working in a real environment under different scenarios.