Combining ubiquitous and on-board audio sensing for human-robot interaction

This paper reports on the development of a mobile robot system for operation within a house equipped with a ubiquitous sensor network. Human robot interaction is achieved through the combination of on-robot audio and laser range sensing and additional audio sensors mounted in the ceiling of the ubiquitous environment. The ceiling mounted microphone arrays can be used to summon a mobile robot from a location outside the robot´s range of hearing. After the robot autonomously navigates to the desired location, the on-board microphone array can be used to locate the sound source and to recognise a series of greetings and commands.