Geomagnetic Field based Human Search and Following for Autonomous Robots

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel human search and following system which uses the pervasive geomagnetic field to enable autonomous robots tracking and finding human users in large-scale indoor environments for human robot coordination. By leveraging geomagnetic field signature around, a robot can search and follow users who traverse freely in a space without the need of direct visual line of sight. The system is low-cost since it requires a magnetometer, which can be found on almost every mobile device. Since no visual data is used for either the user or the robot, privacy is mostly respected. The system includes two main elements. A geomagnetic field based Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping algorithm which generates geomagnetic field map of an environment, and sequence matching of geomagnetic field for autonomous navigation of a robot. The system is tested in a big indoor office demonstrating its effectiveness for large-scale human search and following for human and robot co-working environments.