Detection, tracking, and pursuit of humans with an autonomous mobile robot

We present a system which is able to visually detect human faces, to track them by controlling a robot-head and to pursue a detected person by means of driving movements. The detection is based on a multimodal approach combining color, motion, and contour information. By using a stereo algorithm the position of the person in the scene is determined. Both the path of the person going ahead and a local environment map built by means of range sensor data are used to perform the navigation task. Stationary and dynamic obstacles are avoided during the process of pursuit.