Crowd-Aware Action Planning for Robots in Busy Public Spaces
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Solution Overview
Problem
In environments with numerous unspecified users, such as stores or public facilities, robots struggle to provide information or guidance without causing confusion, especially as the number of users increases.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus equipped with a crowd characteristic estimator and a plan controller, which estimates crowd characteristics based on environmental sensing and controls the creation of action plans for movable bodies to operate more efficiently, avoiding interference with user movements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a robot provides information or guidance to each individual user, then service quality improves, but confusion increases when many users are present
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple individual user targets into a single crowd target for recognition and interaction. The robot detects and recognizes the crowd as a unified object rather than individually tracking each user, which simplifies the interaction model and prevents confusion in environments with many users.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a virtual crowd model that represents the physical crowd's movement characteristics. This virtual model allows the robot to plan actions based on aggregated crowd behavior patterns rather than reacting to each individual user's movements, thereby maintaining service quality while avoiding confusion.
2Measurement precision
If the robot tracks and responds to each individual user's movement, then interaction precision improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple individual detection tasks into a single crowd detection task. Instead of tracking each user separately, the system detects the crowd as a unified target and extracts movement characteristics from aggregated data, significantly reducing computational complexity while maintaining useful interaction precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a simplified virtual representation of the crowd that captures essential movement characteristics without requiring detailed tracking of individual users. This virtual crowd model reduces the complexity of real-time processing while preserving the ability to make accurate interaction decisions.
3Manufacturing precision
If the robot creates detailed action plans for each user, then service accuracy improves, but processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple individual action planning tasks into a single crowd-based action plan. By recognizing the crowd as a unified target and planning actions based on overall crowd movement characteristics rather than individual user trajectories, the system reduces processing time while maintaining service accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary crowd recognition and movement characteristic extraction before detailed action planning. By pre-processing the crowd data and identifying general movement patterns in advance, the system reduces the computational burden of subsequent action planning while maintaining accurate service delivery.
Data Source
AI summary
An information processing apparatus includes a crowd characteristic estimator and a plan controller. The crowd characteristic estimator estimates information regarding a characteristic of a crowd on the basis of a sensing result of an external environment. The crowd is a collection of individuals present in the external environment. The plan controller controls a creation mode of an action plan for a movable body in the external environment on the basis of at least the information regarding the characteristic.