• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.624-631
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• 2008

This paper presents a method for a mobile robot to follow a moving object in real time. The robot follows a target object keeping the facing angle toward the target and the distance to the target to given value. The method consists of two procedures: first, the detection of target position in the robot coordinate system, and the second, the calculation of translational velocity and rotational velocity to follow the object:. To detect the target location, range sensor data is represented in histogram. Based on the real time calculation of the location of the target relative to the robot, translational velocity and rotational velocity to follow the target are calculated. The velocities make the heading angle and the distance to target converge toward the desired ones. The performance of the method is tested through simulation. In the simulation, the target moves with three different trajectories, straight line trajectory, rectangular trajectory, and circular trajectory. As shown in the results, it is inevitable to lose track temporarily of the target when the target suddenly changes its motion direction. Nevertheless, the robot speeds up to catch up and finally succeeds to follow the target as soon as possible even in this case. The proposed method can also be utilized to coordinate the motion of multiple robots to keep their formation as well as to follow a target.