Resumen de Collaborative social robot navigation in accompanying and approaching tasks
Our society is evolving to include robots in our daily lives. Therefore, it is necessary to develop robots capable of collaborating with people to carry out daily tasks, for example: accompanying, searching, transporting, among others. In this thesis, the main objective has been to develop new methods of accompanying and approaching people by robots.
The first of the methods developed to accomplish this objective has been a side-by-side accompaniment of one person, where the robot navigates while accompanying the person. This navigation has been studied in static environments (of buildings, streets, lampposts, etc.) and in dynamic environments, where there are pedestrians and other personal vehicles (bikes, scooters, etc.) that move around. In order for these models to take people into account, some studies have been carried out to accompany people, and they have been used to design the side-by-side"navigation model for robots.
Furthermore, two methods have been developed to accompany groups of people: the first one allows the robot to accompany them using a V-formation, and the second allows the robot to accompany them using a side-by-side formation. Various skills were also implemented so that the robot can react to unexpected behaviors of people in the environment. Finally, three user studies were carried out that demonstrate the acceptability of the volunteers towards both accompaniments of the robot, as well as a comparison of both methods.
In addition, a people approach method has been implemented that allows the robot a more natural approach, by combining G^2-Splines and the Extended Social Force Model.
Finally, both tasks have been combined: accompaniment and approach. Developing two new methods: a simpler one that allows the robot to approach using the intersection of the paths between the group and the approached person; and another method where the robot finds the optimal meeting point between the person and the group, in addition to positioning itself in a triangle formation with both people at the meeting point. For the more complex method, a user study has been carried out to find the acceptability of the method by people.
In addition, for all the methods, we developed several metrics of performance based on "proxemics", to achieve a socially accepted behavior by humans. Also, all methods were tested in simulation and urban areas.
