Related papers: Designing a Wayfinding Robot for People with Visua…
Visually impaired individuals rely heavily on accurate and timely information about obstacles and their surrounding environments to achieve independent living. In recent years, significant progress has been made in the development of…
In today's society, where independent living is becoming increasingly important, it can be extremely constricting for those who are blind. Blind and visually impaired (BVI) people face challenges because they need manual support to prompt…
Lacking the ability to sense ambient environments effectively, blind and visually impaired people (BVIP) face difficulty in walking outdoors, especially in urban areas. Therefore, tools for assisting BVIP are of great importance. In this…
In this paper, we present a robotic navigation algorithm with natural language interfaces, which enables a robot to safely walk through a changing environment with moving persons by following human instructions such as "go to the restaurant…
Assistive technologies for people with visual impairments (PVI) have made significant advancements, particularly with the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time sensor technologies. However, current solutions often…
Virtual reality (VR) interfaces for robots provide a three-dimensional (3D) view of the robot in its environment, which allows people to better plan complex robot movements in tight or cluttered spaces. In our prior work, we created a VR…
People with Visual Impairments (PVI) typically recognize objects through haptic perception. Knowing objects and materials before touching is desired by the target users but under-explored in the field of human-centered robotics. To fill…
In this paper, we explore the design and use of conversational telepresence robots to help homebound older adults interact with the external world. An initial needfinding study (N=8) using video vignettes revealed older adults' experiential…
We propose a learning-based navigation system for reaching visually indicated goals and demonstrate this system on a real mobile robot platform. Learning provides an appealing alternative to conventional methods for robotic navigation:…
Mapless navigation has emerged as a promising approach for enabling autonomous robots to navigate in environments where pre-existing maps may be inaccurate, outdated, or unavailable. In this work, we propose an image-based local…
When mobile robots maneuver near people, they run the risk of rudely blocking their paths; but not all people behave the same around robots. People that have not noticed the robot are the most difficult to predict. This paper investigates…
Sight is essential for humans to navigate their surrounding environment independently. Tasks that are simple for the sighted are often close to impossible for the visually impaired. Throughout the years, many researchers dedicated their…
We consider the problem of navigating a mobile robot towards a target in an unknown environment that is endowed with visual sensors, where neither the robot nor the sensors have access to global positioning information and only use…
People with visual impairments (PVI) use a variety of assistive technologies to navigate their daily lives, and conversational AI (CAI) tools are a growing part of this toolset. Much existing HCI research has focused on the technical…
It is challenging for humans -- particularly those living with physical disabilities -- to control high-dimensional, dexterous robots. Prior work explores learning embedding functions that map a human's low-dimensional inputs (e.g., via a…
Mobile service robots have become increasingly ubiquitous. However, these robots can pose potential accessibility issues and safety concerns to people with visual impairments (PVI). We sought to explore the challenges faced by PVI around…
Navigation is an essential ability for mobile agents to be completely autonomous and able to perform complex actions. However, the problem of navigation for agents with limited (or no) perception of the world, or devoid of a fully defined…
Robots that can effectively understand human intentions from actions are crucial for successful human-robot collaboration. In this work, we address the challenge of a robot navigating towards an unknown goal while also accounting for a…
We claim that navigation in human environments can be viewed as cooperative activity especially in constrained situations. Humans concurrently aid and comply with each other while moving in a shared space. Cooperation helps pedestrians to…
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…