An Effective Method for Creating Virtual Doors and Borders to Prevent Autonomous Mobile Robots from Entering Restricted Areas

Abstract

Autonomous mobile robotics are becoming a common sight in smart homes and industries, where they are used for tasks such as cleaning and material handling. In some cases, it is necessary to restrict the movement of these robots to certain areas or rooms during specific times or for specific tasks, in order to ensure safety and prevent interference. Traditional methods for creating virtual walls and borders to accomplish this often have limitations in terms of ease of use, universality, and remote accessibility. In order to overcome these issues, this work presents a method for creating virtual walls, doors, and borders using the Robotic Operating System (ROS) and point cloud data. This method can be used to restrict the movement of autonomous mobile robots in human-centered environments, including smart homes and warehouses, and can be activated and deactivated remotely. It is a flexible and cost-effective solution that does not require specialized sensors and can be used with single or multi-robot systems. The effectiveness of our method has been demonstrated through testing in simulation based on the reconstruction of real environments.