Multi-Objective Navigation Strategy for Guide Robot Based on Machine Emotion

Abstract

In recent years, the rapid development of robot technology means more kinds of robots appear in life and they are applied in different fields of society. Service robots are mainly used to provide convenience for human beings. Guide robots are a kind of service robot, which can replace manual instruction and guidance. However, most of the existing studies provide a preset guidance trajectory for the guiding robot, or they let the user choose the next target point for position guidance, which is a lack of intelligence. To solve the above problems, a robot navigation strategy based on machine emotion is proposed. Firstly, the machine emotion of the guide robot is established according to the user’s emotional state and environmental information. Then, the machine emotion and current location information are used to estimate the user’s intention, i.e., the most desired next target point. Finally, the classical indoor path planning method and obstacle avoidance method are employed to calculate a passable path between the target point and the current position. Simulation results show that the proposed strategy can execute different navigation strategies according to user emotion. The navigation strategy proposed in this paper has been tested on Pepper robot and received good feedback from the subjects.