AUTONOMOUS LOCOMOTION APPARATUS, AUTONOMOUS LOCOMOTION METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR AUTONOMOUS LOCOMOTION APPARATUS

• US 20140039676A1
• Filed: 10/04/2013
• Published: 02/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: FERNANDO, Jeffry Bonar, YAMAGAMI, Katsuyoshi, NAITO, Eiichi, TANIGAWA, Toru
• Granted Patent: US 9,086,700 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/253
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0214 in accordance with safety or protection criteria, e.g. avoiding hazardous areas monitoring the location of vehicles within a certain area, e.g. forbidden or allowed areas, in traffic control systems for road vehicles G08G1/13
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/024 in combination with a laser lasers per se H01S
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0251 extracting 3D information from a plurality of images taken from different locations, e.g. stereo vision stereoscopic image analysis H04N13/00; depth recovery from images G06T7/593
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0274 using mapping information stored in a memory device navigation using map-matching G01C21/30
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 901/01 Mobile robot

Abstract

An attribute about person'"'"'s mobility capability is judged by a human movement attribute acquisition unit. Candidate paths for a detected person to move along are created by a human path candidate creation unit based on information about the person and a predicted time left for a collision between the autonomous locomotion apparatus and the person. A movement load for each candidate path is evaluated by a human path load evaluation unit based on an attribute of person'"'"'s movement. A path which imposes a minimum movement load on the person, i.e., a path suitable for the person'"'"'s mobility capability and the easiest for the person to avoid the autonomous locomotion apparatus is selected by a human path determination unit. A path for the autonomous locomotion apparatus to guide the person to the selected path is planned by a guide path planning unit.

Claims

1. An autonomous locomotion apparatus which autonomously determines a moving path and moves accordingly, comprising:

an autonomous locomotion apparatus information acquisition unit that acquires a position and a speed of the autonomous locomotion apparatus;

a human detection unit that detects a person around the autonomous locomotion apparatus to acquire a position, a speed, and a direction of travel of the person;

a human movement attribute acquisition unit that acquires an attribute of person'"'"'s movement based on mobility capability of the person which represents easiness of movement of the person for each of travel directions of the person detected by the human detection unit;

a human path candidate creation unit that creates a plurality of candidate paths for having the person move along based on the position and the speed of the autonomous locomotion apparatus acquired by the autonomous locomotion apparatus information acquisition unit and the position, the speed, and the direction of travel of the person acquired by the human detection unit;

a human path load evaluation unit that evaluates a movement load for each candidate path created by the human path candidate creation unit by using an evaluation formula based on information from the human path candidate creation unit and information from the human movement attribute acquisition unit, wherein the movement load represents a time taken for movement according to the person'"'"'s easiness of movement for each direction of travel of the person, and the evaluation formula includes a load of a person'"'"'s travel distance and a load of a person'"'"'s direction change among the attributes based on the mobility capability of the person acquired by the human movement attribute acquisition unit;

a human path determination unit that determines a path for having the person move along from among the candidate paths created by the human path candidate creation unit based on the movement load calculated by the human path load evaluation unit;

a guide path planning unit that plans a path for the autonomous locomotion apparatus to guide the person to the path determined by the human path determination unit based on information from the autonomous locomotion apparatus information acquisition unit and information from the human path determination unit; and

a locomotion control unit that controls the autonomous locomotion apparatus to travel along the guide path planned by the guide path planning unit based on the information from the autonomous locomotion apparatus information acquisition unit and information from the guide path planning unit.

2. The autonomous locomotion apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the human movement attribute acquisition unit acquires information about the person'"'"'s direction change as a human movement attribute.

3. The autonomous locomotion apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

a collision judgment unit that judges presence or absence of probability of collision between the person detected by the human detection unit and the autonomous locomotion apparatus based on the information from the autonomous locomotion apparatus information acquisition unit and information from the human detection unit,

wherein when the collision judgment unit judges that there is the probability of collision between the person and the autonomous locomotion apparatus, the human path candidate creation unit creates a candidate path for having the person move along based on information from the collision judgment unit.

4. The autonomous locomotion apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the human path candidate creation unit determines a goal of the candidate path based on a predicted time left for the autonomous locomotion apparatus and the person to collide with each other and the speed of the person.

5. The autonomous locomotion apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the human path determination unit determines a path for having the person move along based on an environment map for the autonomous locomotion apparatus to travel and the movement load calculated by the human path load evaluation unit.

6. The autonomous locomotion apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the human path determination unit selects a candidate path which imposes a minimum movement load on the person and is easy for the person to avoid the autonomous locomotion apparatus.

7. An autonomous locomotion method for an autonomous locomotion apparatus which autonomously determines a moving path and moves accordingly, comprising:

acquiring information of a position and information of a speed of an autonomous locomotion apparatus;

acquiring a position, a speed, and travel directions of a person around the autonomous locomotion apparatus;

acquiring attribute information based on mobility capability of the person which represents easiness of movement of the person for each of the travel directions of the detected person;

creating a plurality of candidate paths for having the person move along based on the position and the speed of the autonomous locomotion apparatus and the position, the speed, and the travel direction of the person;

evaluating a movement load for each of the candidate paths by using an evaluation formula based on information of the candidate paths and the attribute information, wherein the movement load represents a time taken for movement according to person'"'"'s easiness of movement for each the travel directions of the person, and the evaluation formula includes a load of a person'"'"'s travel distance and a load of a person'"'"'s direction change among pieces of attribute information based on the mobility capability of the person;

determining a path for having the person move along from among the candidate paths based on the movement load;

planning a path for the autonomous locomotion apparatus to guide the person to the determined path based on the information of the position and the speed of the autonomous locomotion apparatus and information of the path for having the person move along; and

controlling the autonomous locomotion apparatus to travel along the planned guide path based on the information of the position and the speed of the autonomous locomotion apparatus and information of the path of the autonomous locomotion apparatus for guiding the person.

8. A computer-readable recording medium including a program for controlling an autonomous locomotion apparatus which autonomously determines a moving path and moves accordingly, wherein

the program causes a computer to function as:

an autonomous locomotion apparatus information acquisition means that acquires a position and a speed of the autonomous locomotion apparatus;

a human movement attribute acquisition unit that acquires an attribute of person'"'"'s movement based on mobility capability of the person which represents easiness of movement of the person for each of travel directions of the person detected by a human detection unit that detects a person around the autonomous locomotion apparatus to acquire a position, a speed, and a direction of travel of the person;

a human path candidate creation unit that creates a plurality of candidate paths for having the person move along based on the position and the speed of the autonomous locomotion apparatus acquired by the autonomous locomotion apparatus information acquisition unit and the position, the speed, and the direction of travel of the person acquired by the human detection unit;

a human path load evaluation unit that evaluates a movement load for each of candidate paths created by the human path candidate creation unit by using an evaluation formula based on information from the human path candidate creation unit and information from the human movement attribute acquisition unit, wherein the movement load represents a time taken for movement according to the person'"'"'s easiness of movement for each of travel directions of travel, and the evaluation formula includes a load of a person'"'"'s travel distance and a load of a person'"'"'s direction change among the attributes based on the mobility capability of the person acquired by the human movement attribute acquisition unit;

a human path determination unit that determines a path for having the person move along from among the candidate paths created by the human path candidate creation unit based on the movement load calculated by the human path load evaluation unit;

a guide path planning unit that plans a path for the autonomous locomotion apparatus to guide the person to the path determined by the human path determination unit based on information from the autonomous locomotion apparatus information acquisition unit and information from the human path determination unit; and

a locomotion control unit that controls the autonomous locomotion apparatus to travel along the guide path planned by the guide path planning unit based on the information from the autonomous locomotion apparatus information acquisition unit and information from the guide path planning unit.