An Autonomous Proxemic System for a Mobile Companion Robot

This paper presents an Autonomous Proxemic System (APS) for a mobile robot. It detects people in the surroundings and manipulates the robot’s motions to approach them keeping an acceptable proxemic distance. The APS sensing functions include face and upper body detection, leg detection, and motion detection using camera, laser, and infra-red sensors respectively. The control functions consist of approach a human and obstacle avoidance. APS uses the sonar and laser range devices to keep an accurate proxemic distance with the human. Initial system tests indicate that the APS keeps desired proxemic distances to within an acceptable error margin.