Development of Mobile Robot System Equipped with Camera and Laser Range Finder Realizing HOG-Based Person Following and Autonomous Returning

In this paper, we propose a mobile robot system which has functions of person following and autonomous returning. The robot realizes these functions by analyzing information obtained with camera and laser range finder. Person following is performed by using HOG features, color information, and pattern of range data. Along with person following, a map of the ambient environment is generated from range data. Autonomous returning to the starting point is performed by applying potential method to the generated map. We verified the proposed method by experiment using a wheel mobile robot in an indoor environment.