Human Tracking of a Crawler Robot in Climbing Stairs

There are many reports of secondary damage to crews during firefighting operations. One way to support and enhance their activities is to get robots to track them and carry supplies. In this paper, we propose a localization method for stairs that includes scene detection. The proposed method allows a robot to track a person across stairs. First, the scene detection autonomously detects that the person is climbing the stairs. Then, the linear model representing the first step of the staircase is combined with the person’s trajectory for localization. The method uses omnidirectional imaging and point clouds, and the localization and scene detection are available from any posture around the stairs. Finally, using the localization result, the robot automatically navigates to a posture where it can climb the stairs. Verification confirmed the accuracy and real-time capability of the method and demonstrated that the actual crawler robot autonomously chooses a posture that is ready for climbing.