Developing visual competencies for socially assistive robots: the HOBBIT approach

In this paper, we present our approach towards developing visual competencies for socially assistive robots within the framework of the HOBBIT project. We show how we integrated several vision modules using a layered architectural scheme. Our goal is to endow the mobile robot with visual perception capabilities so that it can interact with the users. We present the key modules of independent motion detection, object detection, body localization, person tracking, head pose estimation and action recognition and we explain how they serve the goal of natural integration of robots in social environments.