  The growing use of robots in urban environments has raised concerns about
potential safety hazards, especially in public spaces where humans and robots
may interact. In this paper, we present a system for safe human-robot
interaction that combines an infrared (IR) camera with a wearable marker and
airflow potential field. IR cameras enable real-time detection and tracking of
humans in challenging environments, while controlled airflow creates a physical
barrier that guides humans away from dangerous proximity to robots without the
need for wearable devices. A preliminary experiment was conducted to measure
the accuracy of the perception of safety barriers rendered by controlled air
pressure. In a second experiment, we evaluated our approach in an imitation
scenario of an interaction between an inattentive person and an autonomous
robotic system. Experimental results show that the proposed system
significantly improves a participant's ability to maintain a safe distance from
the operating robot compared to trials without the system.
