{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,20]],"date-time":"2026-02-20T02:56:29Z","timestamp":1771556189719,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,10]],"date-time":"2022-10-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1665360000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Robotics"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Robot assistants and service robots are rapidly spreading out as cutting-edge automation solutions to support people in their everyday life in workplaces, health centers, and domestic environments. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically increased the need for service technology to help medical personnel in critical conditions in hospitals and domestic scenarios. The first requirement for an assistive robot is to navigate and follow the user in dynamic environments in complete autonomy. However, these advanced multitask behaviors require flexible mobility of the platform to accurately avoid obstacles in cluttered spaces while tracking the user. This paper presents a novel human-centered navigation system that successfully combines a real-time visual perception system with the mobility advantages provided by an omnidirectional robotic platform to precisely adjust the robot orientation and monitor a person while navigating. Our extensive experimentation conducted in a representative indoor scenario demonstrates that our solution offers efficient and safe motion planning for person-following and, more generally, for human-centered navigation tasks.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/robotics11050108","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,11]],"date-time":"2022-10-11T00:50:01Z","timestamp":1665449401000},"page":"108","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":13,"title":["Human-Centered Navigation and Person-Following with Omnidirectional Robot for Indoor Assistance and Monitoring"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4172-0365","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andrea","family":"Eirale","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronics and Telecommunications (DET), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy"},{"name":"PIC4SeR PoliTO Interdepartmental Center for Service Robotics, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6204-3845","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mauro","family":"Martini","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronics and Telecommunications (DET), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy"},{"name":"PIC4SeR PoliTO Interdepartmental Center for Service Robotics, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1921-0126","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marcello","family":"Chiaberge","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronics and Telecommunications (DET), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy"},{"name":"PIC4SeR PoliTO Interdepartmental Center for Service Robotics, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Martinez-Martin, E., and del Pobil, A.P. (2018). Personal robot assistants for elderly care: An overview. Personal Assistants: Emerging Computational Technologies, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-62530-0_5"},{"key":"ref_2","first-page":"37","article-title":"Robots in elderly care","volume":"2","author":"Vercelli","year":"2018","journal-title":"Digit.-Sci. J. Digit. Cult."},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"United-Nations (2019). Shifting Demographics, United-Nations."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Novak, L.L., Sebastian, J.G., and Lustig, T.A. (2020). The World Has Changed: Emerging Challenges for Health Care Research to Reduce Social Isolation and Loneliness Related to COVID-19. NAM Perspect., 2020.","DOI":"10.31478\/202009b"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1590","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.3045792","article-title":"Robots under COVID-19 pandemic: A comprehensive survey","volume":"9","author":"Shen","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e018815","DOI":"10.1136\/bmjopen-2017-018815","article-title":"Scoping review on the use of socially assistive robot technology in elderly care","volume":"8","author":"Abdi","year":"2018","journal-title":"BMJ Open"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"533","DOI":"10.1089\/tmj.2018.0051","article-title":"Social robots for people with aging and dementia: A systematic review of literature","volume":"25","author":"Hamrioui","year":"2019","journal-title":"Telemed. E-Health"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"941","DOI":"10.2147\/CIA.S282709","article-title":"Friends from the Future: A Scoping Review of Research into Robots and Computer Agents to Combat Loneliness in Older People","volume":"16","author":"Gasteiger","year":"2021","journal-title":"Clin. Interv. Aging"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yatsuda, A., Haramaki, T., and Nishino, H. (2018, January 19\u201321). A Study on Robot Motions Inducing Awareness for Elderly Care. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics-Taiwan (ICCE-TW), Taichung, Taiwan.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICCE-China.2018.8448739"},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"103837","DOI":"10.1016\/j.robot.2021.103837","article-title":"A survey on human-aware robot navigation","volume":"145","author":"Furnari","year":"2021","journal-title":"Robot. Auton. Syst."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1581","DOI":"10.1177\/0278364919881683","article-title":"Person-following by autonomous robots: A categorical overview","volume":"38","author":"Islam","year":"2019","journal-title":"Int. J. Robot. Res."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"936","DOI":"10.1109\/TCDS.2018.2825641","article-title":"Toward socially aware person-following robots","volume":"10","author":"Honig","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Cogn. Dev. Syst."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Eirale, A., Martini, M., Tagliavini, L., Gandini, D., Chiaberge, M., and Quaglia, G. (2022). Marvin: An Innovative Omni-Directional Robotic Assistant for Domestic Environments. Sensors, 22.","DOI":"10.3390\/s22145261"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Jia, D., Hermans, A., and Leibe, B. (2020\u201324, January 24). DR-SPAAM: A Spatial-Attention and Auto-regressive Model for Person Detection in 2D Range Data. Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Las Vegas, NV, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS45743.2020.9341689"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1299","DOI":"10.1007\/s12541-020-00343-7","article-title":"Human-Leg Detection in 3D Feature Space for a Person-Following Mobile Robot Using 2D LiDARs","volume":"21","author":"Cha","year":"2020","journal-title":"Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"85","DOI":"10.3389\/fnbot.2018.00085","article-title":"Tracking People in a Mobile Robot from 2D LIDAR Scans Using Full Convolutional Neural Networks for Security in Cluttered Environments","volume":"12","author":"Rico","year":"2019","journal-title":"Front. Neurorobotics"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wang, W., Liu, P., Ying, R., Wang, J., Qian, J., Jia, J., and Gao, J. (2019). A High-Computational Efficiency Human Detection and Flow Estimation Method Based on TOF Measurements. Sensors, 19.","DOI":"10.3390\/s19030729"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zoghlami, F., Sen, O.K., Heinrich, H., Schneider, G., Ercelik, E., Knoll, A., and Villmann, T. (2021, January 10\u201312). ToF\/Radar early feature-based fusion system for human detection and tracking. Proceedings of the 2021 22nd IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology (ICIT), Valencia, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICIT46573.2021.9453703"},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3212","DOI":"10.1109\/TNNLS.2018.2876865","article-title":"Object detection with deep learning: A review","volume":"30","author":"Zhao","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Neural Netw. Learn. Syst."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1183","DOI":"10.1109\/TII.2018.2849348","article-title":"Fast semantic segmentation for scene perception","volume":"15","author":"Zhang","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Ind. Inf."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"172","DOI":"10.1109\/TPAMI.2019.2929257","article-title":"OpenPose: Realtime multi-person 2D pose estimation using Part Affinity Fields","volume":"43","author":"Cao","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1415","DOI":"10.1109\/TSMC.2016.2616343","article-title":"A novel vision-based tracking algorithm for a human-following mobile robot","volume":"47","author":"Gupta","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Syst."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"103348","DOI":"10.1016\/j.robot.2019.103348","article-title":"Monocular person tracking and identification with on-line deep feature selection for person following robots","volume":"124","author":"Koide","year":"2020","journal-title":"Robot. Auton. Syst."},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"76","DOI":"10.1016\/j.robot.2016.07.004","article-title":"Identification of a specific person using color, height, and gait features for a person following robot","volume":"84","author":"Koide","year":"2016","journal-title":"Robot. Auton. Syst."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Eisenbach, M., Vorndran, A., Sorge, S., and Gross, H.M. (October, January 28). User recognition for guiding and following people with a mobile robot in a clinical environment. Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Hamburg, Germany.","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS.2015.7353880"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"997","DOI":"10.1109\/TMECH.2018.2820172","article-title":"Accurate and real-time 3-D tracking for the following robots by fusing vision and ultrasonar information","volume":"23","author":"Wang","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE\/ASME Trans. Mechatron."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1429","DOI":"10.1109\/TSMC.2017.2660547","article-title":"A gait recognition method for human following in service robots","volume":"48","author":"Chi","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Syst."},{"key":"ref_28","unstructured":"Kobilarov, M., Sukhatme, G., Hyams, J., and Batavia, P. (2006, January 15\u201319). People tracking and following with mobile robot using an omnidirectional camera and a laser. Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2006, Orlando, FL, USA."},{"key":"ref_29","unstructured":"Huh, S., Shim, D.H., and Kim, J. (2013, January 3\u20137). Integrated navigation system using camera and gimbaled laser scanner for indoor and outdoor autonomous flight of UAVs. Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Tokyo, Japan."},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Boschi, A., Salvetti, F., Mazzia, V., and Chiaberge, M. (2020). A cost-effective person-following system for assistive unmanned vehicles with deep learning at the edge. Machines, 8.","DOI":"10.3390\/machines8030049"},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"299","DOI":"10.1007\/s10846-019-01030-0","article-title":"Efficient hybrid-supervised deep reinforcement learning for person following robot","volume":"97","author":"Pang","year":"2020","journal-title":"J. Intell. Robot. Syst."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chen, B.X., Sahdev, R., and Tsotsos, J.K. (2017, January 10\u201313). Integrating stereo vision with a CNN tracker for a person-following robot. Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Vision Systems, Shenzhen, China.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-68345-4_27"},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cen, M., Huang, Y., Zhong, X., Peng, X., and Zou, C. (2019, January 4\u20137). Real-time Obstacle Avoidance and Person Following Based on Adaptive Window Approach. Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA), Tianjin, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICMA.2019.8816233"},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zhang, K., and Zhang, L. (2018, January 9\u201311). Autonomous following indoor omnidirectional mobile robot. Proceedings of the 2018 Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC), Shenyang, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/CCDC.2018.8407177"},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chen, C.W., Tseng, S.P., Hsu, Y.T., and Wang, J.F. (2017, January 8\u201310). Design and implementation of human following for separable omnidirectional mobile system of smart home robot. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Orange Technologies (ICOT), Singapore.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICOT.2017.8336124"},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Papandreou, G. (2018, January 8\u201314). PersonLab: Person Pose Estimation and Instance Segmentation with a Bottom-Up, Part-Based, Geometric Embedding Model. Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), Munich, Germany.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-01264-9_17"},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bewley, A., Ge, Z., Ott, L., Ramos, F., and Upcroft, B. (2016, January 25\u201328). Simple Online and Realtime Tracking. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Phoenix, AZ, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICIP.2016.7533003"},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Saha, O., and Dasgupta, P. (2018). A Comprehensive Survey of Recent Trends in Cloud Robotics Architectures and Applications. Robotics, 7.","DOI":"10.3390\/robotics7030047"},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Maruyama, Y., Kato, S., and Azumi, T. (2016). Exploring the Performance of ROS2, Association for Computing Machinery. EMSOFT \u201916.","DOI":"10.1145\/2968478.2968502"}],"container-title":["Robotics"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2218-6581\/11\/5\/108\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T00:49:12Z","timestamp":1760143752000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2218-6581\/11\/5\/108"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,10]]},"references-count":39,"journal-issue":{"issue":"5","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,10]]}},"alternative-id":["robotics11050108"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/robotics11050108","relation":{},"ISSN":["2218-6581"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2218-6581","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,10]]}}}