  This paper presents a framework to navigate visually impaired people through
unfamiliar environments by means of a mobile manipulator. The Human-Robot
system consists of three key components: a mobile base, a robotic arm, and the
human subject who gets guided by the robotic arm via physically coupling their
hand with the cobot's end-effector. These components, receiving a goal from the
user, traverse a collision-free set of waypoints in a coordinated manner, while
avoiding static and dynamic obstacles through an obstacle avoidance unit and a
novel human guidance planner. With this aim, we also present a legs tracking
algorithm that utilizes 2D LiDAR sensors integrated into the mobile base to
monitor the human pose. Additionally, we introduce an adaptive pulling planner
responsible for guiding the individual back to the intended path if they veer
off course. This is achieved by establishing a target arm end-effector position
and dynamically adjusting the impedance parameters in real-time through a
impedance tuning unit. To validate the framework we present a set of
experiments both in laboratory settings with 12 healthy blindfolded subjects
and a proof-of-concept demonstration in a real-world scenario.
