Human-Following Robot in ISpace

In this section, the expected effects of the human-following robot in ISpace are described. The first feature is that human following can be realized without being influenced by the mobile robot's performance. Not the intelligence of the robot itself but the intelligence of the ISpace is mainly used for the navigation of a mobile robot in ISpace[11]. For this reason, it is possible to perform human-following operations in ISpace with any type of mobile robot, even though the robot lacks sensors and intelligence.

The second feature is that human following is possible even in a complicated environment. ISpace always acquires information about objects such as people, robots and obstacles in the space. Since mobile robots are managed by DINDs from the environment side, ISpace is able to generate each robot's path such that they do not collide with each other. Therefore, the robots are able to move smoothly, even if they are in a complicated environment.

The third feature is that ISpace has various functions; individual attestation, gesture recognition, behavior recognition, a record of the situation in ISpace, etc in addition to the control of the mobile robot. When these functions and the human-following robot system are combined, a more meaningful action of a mobile robot will be achieved. For example, ISpace recognizes a human who is beckoning by a gesture-recognition function, and a mobile robot is sent to him based on information from ISpace.

When a robot, which has advanced functions, is in an ordinary space, the robot is able to afford similar functions as the robots in ISpace. However, its serviceable area is limited to a range near the robot. It is difficult to provide services for people who are far from the robot. In such a case, a human is required to approach the mobile robot in order to receive services from the robot. Therefore, in order to achieve useful robot service, a human-following mobile robot in Intelligent Space is one of the best candidates.