Abstract:
Guide robots that help users who are blind or low vision navigate through crowds and complex environments show promise for improving accessibility in public spaces. These robots must provide real-time safety guarantees for the users, which requires accurate modeling of their behavior in the context of closely coupled human-robot motion. This model must also take into account human agency, including any safety adaptations made by the users themselves. In this talk, I review the use of control barrier functions for provable safety. I propose a model for human behavior within the structure of a coupled control system, and discuss performance on trajectories synthesized from real-world data.

Committee:
Aaron Steinfeld (advisor)
Changliu Liu
Henny Admoni
Leo Keselman