Path generation with Human Frequency Map for a mobile robot and its path evaluation by using human movement simulations

A robot requires any path planning to respect human movements when the robot works with the person in an environment. In this study, a path planning method that respects human movements is proposed for mobile robots working in a living environment. In this path planning, we use a “Human Frequency Map (HFM)” generated by using observed human positions in a sensor-distributed space. The robot can obtain information about path candidates to a goal, pathway width and high possibility areas of human encountering. In this paper, path planning that cares about the human encountering and the pathway width is shown to be performed by superposing the current human position on the HFM. In particular, a simulation is conducted for a case that the robot runs in a living environment with several sensors. Additionally, a path planning method based on using the HFM is compared with that based on not using the HFM to prove the availability of the HFM.