Navigating Real-World Challenges: A Quadruped Robot Guiding System for Visually Impaired People in Diverse Environments

Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) people find challenges in navigating unfamiliar environments, even using assistive tools such as white canes or smart devices. Increasingly affordable quadruped robots offer us opportunities to design autonomous guides that could improve how BVI people find ways around unfamiliar environments and maneuver therein. In this work, we designed RDog, a quadruped robot guiding system that supports BVI individuals’ navigation and obstacle avoidance in indoor and outdoor environments. RDog combines an advanced mapping and navigation system to guide users with force feedback and preemptive voice feedback. Using this robot as an evaluation apparatus, we conducted experiments to investigate the difference in BVI people’s ambulatory behaviors using a white cane, a smart cane, and RDog. Results illustrated the benefits of RDog-based ambulation, including faster and smoother navigation with fewer collisions and limitations, and reduced cognitive load. We discuss the implications of our work for multi-terrain assistive guidance systems.