Multi-stage deep learning perception system for mobile robots

Abstract

This paper presents a novel multi-stage perception system for collision avoidance in mobile robots. In the here considered scenario, a mobile robot stands in a workspace with a set of potential targets to reach or interact with. When a human partner appears gesturing to the target, the robot must plan a collision-free trajectory to reach the goal. To solve this problem, a full-perception system composed of consecutive convolutional neural networks in parallel and processing stages is proposed for generating a collision-free trajectory according to the desired goal. This system is evaluated at each step in real environments and through several performance tests, proving to be a robust and fast system suitable for real-time applications.