Efficient customisable dynamic motion planning for assistive robots in complex human environments
Alessio Colombo, Daniele Fontanelli, Axel Legay, Luigi Palopoli, Sean Sedwards · Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments · 2015
People with impaired physical and mental ability often find it challenging to negotiate crowded or unfamiliar environments, leading to a vicious cycle of deteriorating mobility and sociability. To address this issue we present a novel motion planning algorithm that is able to intelligently deal wit h crowded areas, permanent or temporary anomalies in the environment (e.g., road blocks, wet floors) as well as hard and soft constraints (e.g., “keep a toilet within reach of 10 meters during the journey”, “always avoid stairs”). Constraints can be assigned a priority tailored on the user’s needs. The planner has been validated by means of simulations and experiments with elderly people within the context of the DALi European project.