# Person Following by Autonomous Robots: A Categorical Overview

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.08202 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.08202/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 22 Mar 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [RL-DWA Omnidirectional Motion Planning for Person Following in Domestic Assistance and Monitoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.04993/) (2022)
- [A Little Bit Attention Is All You Need for Person Re-Identification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.14574/) (2023)
- [Monocular Person Localization under Camera Ego-motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02916/) (2025)
- [Robot Person Following in Uniform Crowd Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.10553/) (2022)
- [Navigating the Proximity-Safety Balance: Constraint Decomposition for Human Following in Pedestrian Crowds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.10056/) (2026)
- [Towards Adaptive Interaction Strategies for Human Companion Robot via Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.25031/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A wide range of human-robot collaborative applications in diverse domains such as manufacturing, health care, the entertainment industry, and social interactions, require an autonomous robot to follow its human companion. Different working environments and applications pose diverse challenges by adding constraints on the choice of sensors, the degree of autonomy, and dynamics of a person-following robot. Researchers have addressed these challenges in many ways and contributed to the development of a large body of literature. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the literature by categorizing different aspects of person-following by autonomous robots. Also, the corresponding operational challenges are identified based on various design choices for ground, underwater, and aerial scenarios. In addition, state-of-the-art methods for perception, planning, control, and interaction are elaborately discussed and their applicability in varied operational scenarios are presented. Then, some of the prominent methods are qualitatively compared, corresponding practicalities are illustrated, and their feasibility is analyzed for various use-cases. Furthermore, several prospective application areas are identified, and open problems are highlighted for future research.