A Survey on Human-aware Robot Navigation

TL;DR

This survey reviews current research on human-aware robot navigation, emphasizing the importance of socially compliant movement for robots functioning as companions and highlighting future research directions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of existing solutions and identifies future challenges in human-aware robot navigation.

Findings

Existing solutions vary in approach and effectiveness.

Socially compliant navigation is crucial for robot acceptance.

Future research should focus on integration and real-world testing.

Abstract

Intelligent systems are increasingly part of our everyday lives and have been integrated seamlessly to the point where it is difficult to imagine a world without them. Physical manifestations of those systems on the other hand, in the form of embodied agents or robots, have so far been used only for specific applications and are often limited to functional roles (e.g. in the industry, entertainment and military fields). Given the current growth and innovation in the research communities concerned with the topics of robot navigation, human-robot-interaction and human activity recognition, it seems like this might soon change. Robots are increasingly easy to obtain and use and the acceptance of them in general is growing. However, the design of a socially compliant robot that can function as a companion needs to take various areas of research into account. This paper is concerned with the navigation aspect of a socially-compliant robot and provides a survey of existing solutions for the relevant areas of research as well as an outlook on possible future directions.