Human-Following Strategy for Orchard Mobile Robot Based on the KCF-YOLO Algorithm

Autonomous mobile robots play a vital role in the mechanized production of orchards, where human-following is a crucial collaborative function. In unstructured orchard environments, obstacles often obscure the path, and personnel may overlap, leading to significant disruptions to human-following. This paper introduces the KCF-YOLO fusion visual tracking method to ensure stable tracking in interference environments. The YOLO algorithm provides the main framework, and the KCF algorithm intervenes in assistant tracking. A three-dimensional binocular-vision reconstruction method was used to acquire personnel positions, achieving stabilized visual tracking in disturbed environments. The robot was guided by fitting the personnel's trajectory using an unscented Kalman filter algorithm. The experimental results show that, with 30 trials in multi-person scenarios, the average tracking success rate is 96.66%, with an average frame rate of 8 FPS. Additionally, the mobile robot is capable of maintaining a stable following speed with the target individuals. Across three human-following experiments, the horizontal offset Error Y does not exceed 1.03 m. The proposed KCF-YOLO tracking method significantly bolsters the stability and robustness of the mobile robot for human-following in intricate orchard scenarios, offering an effective solution for tracking tasks.