About This Project

Human-following robots have potential applications in the future as aid for the elderly or children. Many different combinations of software and hardware have been used to program the detecting and tracking abilities of said robots, which can make the robot extremely complex and expensive. In this experiment, we will attempt to build a human-following robot with affordable commercial parts and test how well it functions in comparison to high-end robots.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

As robots have begun to be more developed and advanced, we’ve started seeing more applications for them. Mobile robots in particular have potential domestic uses: serving as aid for the elderly, sick, or children.

One feature of such robots, their ability to follow a person around by detection and tracking, has been studied intensively. Many different sensors have been proposed for such a robot, one being the laser rangefinder for depth detection. It’s far more accurate than other types of sensors but more expensive (therefore difficult for mass production). An alternative is the stereo camera, which has been shown to be able to match the accuracy of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). My experiment tests the efficiency of a robot that relies on this alternative as its primary sensor.

What is the significance of this project?

Although there are different ways of building a human-following robot, each method has its own pros and cons to consider. The stereo camera, which is increasingly used, is different than a regular camera in that it contains two cameras placed at a set distance from each other. This gives it an ability similar to having two eyes, where a person can decide what object is closer or farther by looking at its depth. My project aims to use affordable stereo camera and ultrasonic sensorsfor detection and tracking in a robot and compare it to the accuracy of more expensive robots to explore the trade-off between cost and accuracy.

What are the goals of the project?

The goal of this project is to build a dataset that trains the stereo camera to detect human figures and to use a stereo camera and ultrasonic sensors on a mobile robot to capture 3D images and build a depth map. This will aid the robot in detecting and tracking the target. In addition, the accuracy of this robot will be compared to robots using laser rangefinders and other sensors.