Related papers: Can Quadruped Navigation Robots be Used as Guide D…
While guide dogs offer essential mobility assistance, their high cost, limited availability, and care requirements make them inaccessible to most blind or low vision (BLV) individuals. Recent advances in quadruped robots provide a scalable…
Robotic guide dogs hold significant potential to enhance the autonomy and mobility of blind or visually impaired (BVI) individuals by offering universal assistance over unstructured terrains at affordable costs. However, the design of…
While there is no replacement for the learned expertise, devotion, and social benefits of a guide dog, there are cases in which a robot navigation assistant could be helpful for individuals with blindness or low vision (BLV). This study…
Dog guides are favored by blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals for their ability to enhance independence and confidence by reducing safety concerns and increasing navigation efficiency compared to traditional mobility aids. However, only…
A quadruped robot is a promising system that can offer assistance comparable to that of dog guides due to its similar form factor. However, various challenges remain in making these robots a reliable option for blind and low-vision (BLV)…
This paper explores the principles for transforming a quadrupedal robot into a guide robot for individuals with visual impairments. A guide robot has great potential to resolve the limited availability of guide animals that are accessible…
Guide dogs offer independence to Blind and Low-Vision (BLV) individuals, yet their limited availability leaves the vast majority of BLV users without access. Quadruped robotic guide dogs present a promising alternative, but existing systems…
Dog guides offer an effective mobility solution for blind or visually impaired (BVI) individuals, but conventional dog guides have limitations including the need for care, potential distractions, societal prejudice, high costs, and limited…
A robot guide dog has compelling advantages over animal guide dogs for its cost-effectiveness, potential for mass production, and low maintenance burden. However, despite the long history of guide dog robot research, previous studies were…
While commendable progress has been made in user-centric research on mobile assistive systems for blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals, references that directly inform robot navigation design remain rare. To bridge this gap, we conducted…
Guidance robots that can guide people and avoid various obstacles, could potentially be owned by more visually impaired people at a fairly low cost. Most of the previous guidance robots for the visually impaired ignored the human response…
Robots are increasingly integrated across industries, particularly in healthcare. However, many valuable applications for quadrupedal robots remain overlooked. This research explores the effectiveness of three reinforcement learning…
Guiding robots, in the form of canes or cars, have recently been explored to assist blind and low vision (BLV) people. Such robots can provide full or partial autonomy when guiding. However, the pros and cons of different forms and autonomy…
Robotic guidance systems have shown promise in supporting blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals with wayfinding and obstacle avoidance. However, most existing systems assume a clear path and do not support a critical aspect of…
This paper introduces DogSurf - a newapproach of using quadruped robots to help visually impaired people navigate in real world. The presented method allows the quadruped robot to detect slippery surfaces, and to use audio and haptic…
Assistive robotics is an important subarea of robotics that focuses on the well-being of people with disabilities. A robotic guide dog is an assistive quadruped robot that helps visually impaired people in obstacle avoidance and navigation.…
Seeing-eye robots are very useful tools for guiding visually impaired people, potentially producing a huge societal impact given the low availability and high cost of real guide dogs. Although a few seeing-eye robot systems have already…
Quadruped platforms have become an active topic of research due to their high mobility and traversability in rough terrain. However, it is highly challenging to determine whether the clattered environment could be passed by the robot and…
An autonomous robot that is able to physically guide humans through narrow and cluttered spaces could be a big boon to the visually-impaired. Most prior robotic guiding systems are based on wheeled platforms with large bases with actuated…
In this paper, WALK-VIO, a novel visual-inertial odometry (VIO) with walking-motion-adaptive leg kinematic constraints that change with body motion for localization of quadruped robots, is proposed. Quadruped robots primarily use VIO…