Multiobjective navigation of a guide mobile robot for the visually impaired based on intention inference of obstacles

Different from ordinary mobile robots used in a well-structured industrial workspace, a guide mobile robot for the visually impaired should be designe d in consideration of multiple moving obstacles of various types and with d ifferent speeds while it adaptively maintains a certain distance from the u ser. Here, the moving obstacles mostly refer to pedestrians in intentional motions. Thus, navigation of the guide robot can be facilitated if the inte ntion of each obstacle detected can be known in advance. In the paper, we propose to use a fuzzy grid-type local map in order to inf er the intention of a moving obstacle. And, then, we determine the motion c ontrol of the robot by adopting a multiobjective decision making method in order to take into consideration various requirements including goal-seekin g, multiple obstacle avoidance and maintenance of a certain distance from t he user. To show the effectiveness of the proposed method, some experimenta l results are provided.