1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus which moves autonomously.
2. Description of the Related Art
As robots have become more sophisticated in functionality, there are increasing opportunities for the robots to perform jobs or works such as carrying luggage or guiding human beings to their destinations. As such, in the environment where a plurality of robots coexist, the need for each robot to move while preventing collision with the other robots is increasing. In this relation, a technique to manage movements of a plurality of robots by a server to avoid contact therebetween is proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-133863).
In the environment where the movements of the robots are not managed by the server, however, the robots are required to act or move autonomously while avoiding contact with each other. Even in the case where the movements of the robots are managed by the server, if the robots are out of the communication range of the server, the need for the robots to act or move autonomously while preventing contact with each other arises. On the other hand, in the case where the robots are similar or identical in algorithm for autonomous motion to each other, the robots may act in a similar manner to avoid contact with the other robots. This may rather increase the possibility of contact therebetween despite their movements for the purposes of avoiding the contact.