Sensor integration for person tracking and following with mobile robot

The ability to detect and follow a specific person is a key prerequisite of service mobile robots in indoor environments. A novel method for tracking and following a specific person with a mobile robot by combining vision and laser range information is proposed. The vision module which integrates the color matching method using the Horizontal-Projecting Probability Histogram (HPPH) of upper body color clothes region with the Unscented Particle Filter (UPF) tracking method is developed and, at the same time, the laser module detects the pairs of legs to measure the distance from mobile robot. The information is integrated in a detection procedure that returns the direction and the distance of the target person. The proportional compensation method is utilized to enable the robot to follow the target person steadily. Experimental results validate the robust performance of the approach.