Simulation Modeling of Pedestrian Behavior in the Presence of Unmanned Mobile Robots

ORCID

May: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8275-6773

MSU Affiliation

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering; Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Department of Computer Science and Engineering; Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems; College of Arts and Sciences; Department of Psychology; Department of Sociology

Creation Date

2026-06-01

Abstract

Interactions between pedestrians and robots are becoming more commonplace. In public areas, for example, robots may be used for information dissemination, security, or patrol tasks. Based upon existing literature in the field of human-robot interaction, the ISAPT simulation system was revised to model individual pedestrian behavior in the presence of a mobile robot. Using an agent-based modeling approach, pedestrians are statistically assigned one of six reported behaviors when a robot is encountered: interact, watch, curious, ignore, cautious, and avoid. The modeling methods for incorporating these behaviors include modifying a pedestrian's existing agenda and/or their perception of the threat represented by the non-humanoid robot, while the pedestrian continues to make navigation decisions based on their overall utility function. This paper discusses the implementation of this capability and presents results on ISAPT's ability to reproduce the different behaviors reported in the literature. Data collected in a field study are used to further validate the system by comparing measures from observed behaviors to simulation output. Validation measures included lateral distance to robot and lateral path deviation. These results illustrate this approach is an effective means for adding this capability to microsimulation modeling systems.

Publication Date

4-10-2017

Publication Title

Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory

Publisher

Elsevier

First Page

96

Last Page

112

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS
 

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.simpat.2017.03.012