I’ve had this happen with actual humans. A human is coming toward me on a path. I zig. They zig. I zag. They zag. We walk into each other. It must be some kind of human path finding bug. :-)
I've never actually walked into people, usually after 2 or 3 you look at each other and smile and then one person steps to the side or both and then you go, no you, ok.
it definitely should smile before/while driving into your legs as well as when standing waiting for you to walk around. It can also mark you with the laser pointer to indicate that it does sense you. Communication is the key.
The facial communication is only necessary because we're negotiating as two people who want to go where the other one is. When it comes to bots they can be forever deferential and always yield to humans.
I understand yea - when it comes to a robot and a human though the human doesn't need to yield. It'll probably take some time to train it into people but humans should always have the right of way.
You avoid this by using visual cues. E.g. strongly looking into the direction that you want to go. I suppose that most people learn this at an early age. And these robots should too.
Always go through the right side, is this not a rule in your country? I'm asking not knowing where I learned it, but it definitely is a social norm to take the right side of the sidewalk anytime this may happen. Everyone just does this and it works out great.
Oh how I wish everybody understood this. Even in crowded cities in the US you get a lot of people who do not understand this. A minority to be sure, but a sizable one (I’d estimate between 5-10%, probably 10% but sometimes people who aren’t cognizant of this are accidentally correct in their pathing choice). Unfortunately this means you need to sometimes make split second decisions that this person probably has no idea what they’re doing and instead just figure out how to get around them regardless of convention
It is the left side in my country. Which creates a problem when people from right-sided countries visit my city.
I noticed this in China, a densely populated mostly right-sided country. Whenever a British engineering firm would install escalators they would set the direction opposite to the flow of human traffic. You would walk up to it on the path on the right side and be forced to cross the path of oncoming people to use the escalator on the left before having to cross over again once at the top.
