Interactive formation by multiple mobile robots for guiding humans

For human-centered automation, it is a given fact that human safety is completely ensured. In addition, both of the humans and robots must perform given tasks as efficiently as possible in terms of productivity. For this issue, human-robot interaction in multi-robot systems is a challenge. Therefore, this paper presents an interactive formation by multiple mobile robots for guiding humans. In the guidance formation, robots suggest a moving direction to humans. If the suggested direction corresponds to the desired moving direction and destination of the human, the human behavior is implicitly attracted by the robots in the guidance formation. Eventually, humans move through the formation quickly and the robots restart working immediately. This is a main contribution of this paper. For this purpose, we use a social force model that defines interaction forces affecting on the human behavior. On the basis of the social force model, robots are enabled to estimate the desired moving direction of humans. Through simulation experiments, we discuss the effectiveness of the interactive formation for the humans and robots.