Frontiers in Robotics and AI (Jan 2022)

Evaluation of Socially-Aware Robot Navigation

  • Yuxiang Gao,
  • Chien-Ming Huang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.721317
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8

Abstract

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As mobile robots are increasingly introduced into our daily lives, it grows ever more imperative that these robots navigate with and among people in a safe and socially acceptable manner, particularly in shared spaces. While research on enabling socially-aware robot navigation has expanded over the years, there are no agreed-upon evaluation protocols or benchmarks to allow for the systematic development and evaluation of socially-aware navigation. As an effort to aid more productive development and progress comparisons, in this paper we review the evaluation methods, scenarios, datasets, and metrics commonly used in previous socially-aware navigation research, discuss the limitations of existing evaluation protocols, and highlight research opportunities for advancing socially-aware robot navigation.

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