Enhancing Mobile Robots’ Navigation through Mobility Assessments in Domestic Environments

A new concept to enhance mobile robot navigation in domestic environments by the use of mobility assessment data is presented. The concept is part of our overall approach to enabling more precise and reliable mobility assessment by the use of a mobile monitoring platform i.e. a mobile service robot equipped with a laser range scanner. We are basing our new approach on our previous work on the application of the potential field method to mobility trend analysis and the precise measurements of human movement trajectories by a laser range scanner. The enhancements to the robot’s navigation enable more precise assessment results while ensuring to not hinder or endanger the human. While navigating the robot moves from one to another observation location and tries to avoid the user’s movement paths whenever possible. Additionally, it adapts its own driving speed to the human’s. We call these secure observation locations which provide better assessment results Optimal Observation Lots (OOL). The concept’s algorithm, which was only implemented partially yet, contributes to our ultimate goal to develop an ’‘off the shelf” robot that is placed in the user’s home and is able to find its own observation spots and movement paths without further pre-programmed knowledge of the environment.