Autonomous Person Following with 3D LIDAR in Outdoor Environments

The capability of a robot to follow autonomously a person highly enhances its usability when humans and robots collaborate. In this paper we present a system for autonomous following of a walking person in outdoor environments while avoiding static and dynamic obstacles. The principal sensor is a 3D LIDAR with a resolution of 59x29 points. We present a combination of 3D features, motion detection and tracking with a sampling Bayesian filter which results in reliable person detection for a lowresolution 3D-LIDAR. The method is implemented on an outdoor robot with car-like steering, which incorporates the target’s path into its own path planning around local obstacles. Experiments in outdoor areas validate the approach.