The Influence of Mobile Robots on Collective Human Behaviour

The aim  of the project was to  investigate collective behaviour and reactions of people in contact with mobile robots, using a camera equipped with Intelligent Video Analysis (IVA) system.

Wpływ robotów mobilnych na zbiorowe zachowanie ludzi (fot. PIAP)

The aim of the project  was to investigate collective behaviour and reactions of people in contact with mobile robots, using a camera equipped with Intelligent Video Analysis system. The main thesis of the project was the assumption that the introduction of a mobile robot to the human environment, being an incidental, spontaneous crowd, would change the behaviour of both individuals and the entire population of interest. The project featured an innovative approach as the most recent advances in image processing techniques were used for conducting research in the field of social sciences.

The research aimed to develop a dynamic model of a crowd in contact with a mobile robot, given in numerical form (graph, simulation).

The use of the IVA system enabled real-time acquisition of necessary data (e.g. abundance, speed, density, direction of movement and flow, the speed of individuals) for numerical crowd modelling.

Implementation timeframe: 01.03.2010–28.02.2011