Gaussian Pedestrian Proxemics Model with Social Force for Service Robot Navigation in Dynamic Environment

Pedestrian motion behaves stochastically, causing difficulties in modelling the appropriate proxemics for effective and efficient service robot navigation. Intruding the pedestrian social space can affect the social acceptance of a service robot. In this paper, a new proxemics model, Social-Force Gaussian Pedestrian Proxemics Model is presented to model the pedestrian social space and to improve the service robot navigation in dynamic human environment. This model was simulated and validated in a pedestrian simulator with both low and high pedestrian density environments. Results showed that the proposed model (i) improved proxemics representation of pedestrians, (ii) enhanced the robot performance in respecting the social norm and (iii) increased the efficiency in achieving a given task. This paper also presents the methods for parameter selections for the model without the requirement of complex tuning.

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