Accompanying Mobile Robot Control Using Predicted User Position
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional accompanying mobile bodies, such as store robots, experience delayed responses when a user abruptly changes direction due to relying on image sensors for distance calculation, leading to inefficiencies in following the user.
Innovation Solution
Incorporating a movement state recognition section to recognize user direction and speed, a predicted location calculation section to calculate future positions, and an accompanying control section to adjust movement based on these calculations, with optional features like motion recognition for adjusting calculation intervals and turn angle recognition for speed adjustments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If the accompanying mobile body uses an image sensor to calculate the user's distance and follows the user to maintain a constant distance, then the device can track the user's position, but the response is delayed when the user abruptly changes traveling direction
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by calculating the predicted location where the user will be after a predetermined time period based on current moving direction and speed, rather than simply following the user's current position. This anticipatory approach allows the accompanying mobile body to proactively move toward the predicted location, reducing response delay when the user changes direction.
2Reliability
If the accompanying mobile body calculates predicted location based on user's moving direction and speed, then the response to abrupt direction changes is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces an intermediary element - the predicted location calculation section - that acts as a mediator between the user's current movement state and the accompanying mobile body's navigation. This intermediary calculates future positions based on current speed and direction, providing a bridge that improves tracking accuracy without requiring direct real-time tracking of every user movement.
3Stability of the object's composition
If the accompanying mobile body maintains a constant distance from the user, then the user experience is stable, but the system cannot adapt to abrupt changes in user behavior
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies dynamics by making the following distance adaptive rather than fixed. The accompanying mobile body dynamically adjusts its target distance based on the user's movement state - maintaining a predetermined distance during normal movement, but adjusting to a different predetermined distance when the user changes direction or stops. This dynamic adjustment allows the system to maintain stability during normal operation while adapting to changing user behavior.
Data Source
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AI summary
To provide an accompanying mobile body a response to an abrupt change in a traveling direction of a user of which is restrained from being delayed. A movement state recognition section 52 recognizes a moving direction and a moving speed of a user. A predicted location calculation section 53 calculates a predicted location of the user after a first predetermined time period based on the moving direction and the moving speed of the user. An accompanying control section 54 performs accompanying control to cause an accompanying mobile body 1 to move by a traveling unit 10 toward a target location of accompanying that is a location apart from the predicted location by a specified distance in a specified direction.