Sound Source based Mobile Robot Control for Human Following in a Networked Intelligent Space

This research addresses sensor-based tracking problems for autonomous cleaning mobile robot in a networked sensor space. To solve the problem, the difference among the traveling times of the sound source to each of three microphones has been used to calculate the distance and orientation of the sound source from the cleaning mobile robot, which carries the microphone array. The cross-correlation between two signals has been applied for detecting the time difference between two signals, which provides reliable and precise value of the time difference compared to the conventional methods. To generate the tracking direction to the sound source, fuzzy rules are applied and the results are used to control the cleaning mobile robot in a real-time. Finally the experiment results show that the proposed algorithm works well, even though the mobile robot knows little about the environment.