[Electronics-Talk] Guide bots for the blind

Nicole Torcolini ntorcolini at wavecable.com
Wed Apr 11 03:04:51 UTC 2018


	Before discussing guide bots, to answer your question about self
driving cars, what a self driving car detects and does depends very much on
the type of sensors and programming.
https://www.investors.com/news/technology/self-driving-car-waymo/
	As for guide bots, here is my opinion as a programmer:
	There will always be things that living creatures can do that robots
cannot. The size of the gap depends on how intelligent the creature is, what
the robot is trying to mimic, and the capabilities of the robot as well as
various other factors. Observation and interpretation of surroundings is a
very hard problem to solve, especially in new areas; some of the self
driving cars travel only in premapped areas.
	Learning is another problem. A guide bot would probably have to be
programmed in every way that it was supposed to learn. For example, there
would probably have to be a preprogrammed function for showing you places
and objects that you have used before.
	On top of interpretation is decision making, which is always a
challenge with programming. Even if the robot understands what it detects,
what does *safe* mean?
	It's just really hard to program *everything* that a guide dog would
do into a robot.
	I don't have any specific resources for you, but I would recommend
looking up and reading about technology that attempts to act like humans. I
know that humans are not what you asked about, but I don't think that there
is any literature about robot animals.
	Oh, and how long until we have robot guide dogs that completely,
100% replace the functionality of guide dogs? I would think at least ten
years, especially if you want it to be able to travel in new places,
backtrack, find certain objects (chair, stairs, elevator), offer you things
that you have had before, have customizable features, and anything else.

-----Original Message-----
From: Electronics-Talk [mailto:electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Ben Fulton via Electronics-Talk
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2018 2:44 PM
To: electronics-talk at nfbnet.org
Cc: Ben Fulton
Subject: [Electronics-Talk] Guide bots for the blind


Hi Everyone,

In the interest of progress and technology, in the spirit of the electronics
that we all came here to discuss. What does everyone think about guide bots
for the blind. How long do you think before we will have robots that could
replace dogs. Could they be programmed with accessible gps and made so that
the first time you go to a new place the bot is guiding you the whole way.
Now that I have a dog I realize what a huge advantage this would be.

Also, guide bots could be programmed to identify when traffic signals
change. Some cities are experimenting with smart traffic signals that will
emit a Bluetooth signal.

I realize the first self driving smart car accident happened fairly
recently, does this raise any concerns with the ability of a robot to guide
a user in a wrong and dangerous direction.

Would it be more advantageous to have a body clip that someone wears to get
the feedback, or would having something free running that has a handle like
the guide dog harness be better for a tactile response. - One design I
thought about is to have wheels on hydraulics so that the guide bot could
angle it's way upstairs with the use of hydraulics, but hten I thought that
haptic feedback could be provided in a hands off way like something worn
around the waist. Some people may want to check out the buzz clip. This does
some of what I would want, but not as much as a guide dog.

I'm wondering how long do people think it will be before we have something
electronic that could perform as good as a guide dog.

One thing for sure is that no one will object to having electronics in their
vehicle.






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