Human Following Based on Visual Perception in the Context of Warehouse Logistics

Abstract: Under the background of 5G, Internet, artificial intelligence technol,ogy and robot technology, warehousing, and logistics robot technology has developed rapidly, and products have been widely used. A practical application is to help warehouse personnel pick up or deliver heavy goods at dispersed locations based on dynamic routes. However, programs that can only accept instructions or pre-set by the system do not have more flexibility, but existing human auto-following techniques either cannot accurately identify specific targets or require a combination of lasers and cameras that are cumbersome and do not accomplish obstacle avoidance well. This paper proposed an algorithm that combines DeepSort and a width-based tracking module to track targets and use artificial potential field local path planning to avoid obstacles. The evaluation is performed in a self-designed flat bounded test field and simulated in ROS. Our method achieves the SOTA results on following and successfully reaching the end-point without hitting obstacles.