Development of Human Following Mobile Robot System Using Laser Range Scanner

This paper discussed a human following mobile robot system using laser range scanner. The laser range scanner is very useful device for getting the environmental information around the robot. We developed the human detecting algorithm that the laser range scanner to detect the shins of the target person. When the laser range scanner scans the person's shin, the shape of the section of the shin shows parabola shape of the convex below. The mobile robot can detect and follow the target person based on the positions of both shins. Since the laser range scanner detects the obstacles, the system has the collision avoidance functions. The effectiveness of our system is demonstrated by several performance tests.