Abstract
A wide range of human-robot collaborative applications in diverse domains such as manufacturing, search-and-rescue, health care, the entertainment industry, and social interactions, require an autonomous robot to follow its human companion. Different working environments and applications pose diverse challenges by adding constraints on the choice of sensors, the degree of autonomy, and dynamics of the person-following robot. Researchers have addressed these challenges in many ways and contributed to the development of a large body of literature. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the literature by categorizing different aspects of person-following by autonomous robots. Also, the corresponding operational challenges are identified based on various design choices for ground, underwater, and aerial scenarios. In addition, state-of-the-art methods for perception, planning, control, and interaction are elaborately discussed and their applicability in varied operational scenarios are presented. Then, qualitative evaluations of some of the prominent methods are performed, corresponding practicalities are illustrated, and their feasibility is analyzed in terms of standard metrics. Furthermore, several prospective application areas are identified, and open problems are highlighted for future research.
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URL
http://arxiv.org/abs/1803.08202