Development and Experimental Verification of a Person Tracking System of Mobile Robots Using Sensor Fusion of Inertial Measurement Unit and Laser Range Finder for Occlusion Avoidance

The authors have been developing a mobile robot to assist doctors in hospitals in managing medical tools and patient electronic medical records. The robot tracks behind a mobile medical worker while maintaining a constant distance from the worker. However, it was difficult to detect objects in the sensor’s invisible region, called occlusion. In this study, we propose a sensor fusion method to estimate the position of a robot tracking target indirectly by an inertial measurement unit (IMU) in addition to the direct measurement by an laser range finder (LRF) and develop a human tracking system to avoid occlusion by a mobile robot. Based on this, we perform detailed experimental verification of tracking a specified person to verify the validity of the proposed method.