Vision-based people detection using depth information for social robots

Abstract

Robots are starting to be applied in areas which involve sharing space with humans. In particular, social robots and people will coexist closely because the former are intended to interact with the latter. In this context, it is crucial that robots are aware of the presence of people around them. Traditionally, people detection has been performed using a flow of twodimensional images. However, in nature, animals' sight perceives their surroundings using color and depth information. In this work, we present new people detectors that make use of the data provided by depth sensors and red-green-blue images to deal with the characteristics of human-robot interaction scenarios. These people detectors are based on previous works using two-dimensional images and existing people detectors from different areas. The disparity of the input and output data used by these types of algorithms usually complicates their integration into robot control architectures. We propose a common interface that can be used by any people detector, resulting in numerous advantages. Several people detectors using depth information and the common interface have been implemented and evaluated. The results show a great diversity among the different algorithms. Each one has a particular domain of use, which is reflected in the results. A clever combination of several algorithms appears as a promising solution to achieve a flexible, reliable people detector.

The Influence of Speed and Position in Dynamic Gesture Recognition for Human-Robot Interaction

“…This desktop robot has been employed in stimulation sessions for mild cognitive impaired elderly people [34]. The platform offers multiple interaction interfaces such as automatic speech recognition [35], voice activity detection [36], user recognition [37], user localization [38], user identification [39], emotion detection [40], and TTS capabilities as well as a 3D camera. This device was a Kinect for Xbox One with a colour resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels at 30 frames per second (limited in our study to 10 fps) and a depth resolution of 512 × 424 points at the same frame rate.…”

Biologically inspired vision systems in robotics

“…The fifth article of the Special Issue proposes an approach to vision-based people detection using depth information for social robots. 8 In the context of interaction between social robots and people, it is crucial that robots are aware of the presence of people around them. Traditionally, people detection has been performed using a flow of 2-D images.…”

Detecting and tracking using 2D laser range finders and deep learning

“…For example, in Ref. [6] a social robot uses a Kinect sensor fusing colour and depth information for people detecting. Associated to the RGB-Depth sensors, skeleton-based approaches have been proposed [7,8] allowing the recognition of person pose and some actions or behaviours.…”