Behavior of a Person-Following Robot in Pedestrian Environments: Laboratory Experimentation and Simulation

As e-commerce continues to grow, the demand for fast and efficient last-mile delivery is increasing. Person-following robots is a solution that is now beginning to be deployed to assist foot couriers in performing last-mile delivery tasks in public areas, such as underground pedestrian walkways and malls. Although they have proved their capacity to operate successfully in uncrowded and highly regulated spaces like warehouses, it is still uncertain whether their performance would be satisfactory in crowded, unstructured, and complex environments. This study proposes a simulation approach for evaluating the performance of a commercial person-following delivery robot in dynamic pedestrian environments. Laboratory experiments were conducted to understand the robot's operating characteristics. Based on empirical observation, a computer simulation model of the robot was developed in a pedestrian simulator, which was calibrated and validated with experimental data. This model was expanded to include pedestrian crowds such that the performance of the robot was evaluated under various crowding scenarios. Research limitations and recommendations for future work are identified.