Socially Reactive Navigation Models for Mobile Robots

This work considers socially acceptable behaviors in traditional reactive navigation systems, allowing a robot to approach a group of humans in a socially acceptable manner by considering the personal space and the group space. In contrast to the fixed parameters of social distancing, this work presents an adaptive model; that is, the parameters of the personal and group space’s cost functions adapt according to the arrangement of the group and space constraints, avoiding the choice of initial parameters. A socially aware navigation system capable of approaching groups is implemented for a general-purpose mobile robot. The adaptive personal and group space algorithm is integrated with the standard navigation system of ROS, representing their information in a costmap layer. The adaptation of spaces is tested using fixed and adaptive parameters for different groups provided by three datasets. The navigation system is evaluated through simulation experiments, demonstrating that the robot is capable of approaching groups and, at the same time, provides a more realistic space modeling adapted to the context.