Personal Mobility Vehicle Autonomous Navigation Through Pedestrian Flow: A Data Driven Approach for Parameter Extraction

In this paper we present a data driven approach for safe and smooth autonomous navigation of a personal mobility vehicle (PMV) when facing moving obstacles such as people and bicycles in public pedestrian paths. In a period of three months, data from five different persons driving the robotic PMV in an outdoor environment while facing pedestrians were collected. 2465 clean tracks around the vehicle together with PMVs trajectories were collected. We performed an analysis of the parameters involved for human-driven smooth navigation. Relevant parameters regarding PMV-Human interaction included distance to moving objects, passing side and velocities. Moreover, data suggests the existence of a social navigational distance for the PWv. For autonomous navigation we implemented a Frenet planner to achieve safe and smooth navigation for the passenger and pedestrians around. Experimental results in real pedestrian paths show that the PMV is capable of smoothly following its path while facing pedestrians and bicycles.