Pedestrian Estimation in Blind Spots of External Sensors Using BLE Beacons and Mobile Robot Navigation Based on this Information
Seunghyun Kim, Kazuki Fujiwara, Daisuke Chugo, Satoshi Muramatsu, Sho Yokota, Jinhua She, Hiroshi Hashimoto · 2025
Service robots need to be able to avoid pedestrians safely and reliably in environments where they coexist with pedestrians. However, it is difficult for robots to detect and avoid pedestrians from a safe distance because pedestrians at the end of a corridor or around a corner are in blind spots that the robot cannot detect with its external sensors. Therefore, this research proposes a robot navigation method that detects pedestrians in the robot's blind spot by receiving Bluetooth low energy (BLE) Beacon signals emitted by Bluetooth devices such as smartphones and wireless earphones that pedestrians generally have, and safely avoids them. By using the proposed method, our mobile robot can detect pedestrians that suddenly appear from a corner of a corridor earlier than when using a laser rangefinder, and avoid them safely in our preliminary experiment.