On motion planning of mobile robots which coexist and cooperate with human

Abstract

In this paper a motion planning method for mobile robots that coexist and cooperate with human beings to avoid collision is proposed. Human motion, which has large uncertainty, is predicted by a motion predictor using a stochastic process model to generate probability distribution maps of human existence. An evaluating function is defined considering the danger of collision and efficiency of trajectories. A genetic algorithm determines the robot trajectory by optimizing the function. This procedure is repeated for each sampling time. The robot moves maintaining high safety against various possible human motion. Simulation results revealed that robots can reach goals avoiding danger along appropriate trajectories and that this method is effective especially for the case where optimal trajectories dynamically vary according to change of human motion.