四足歩行ロボットは盲導犬の代わりになるか？
Can Quadruped Navigation Robots be Used as Guide Dogs?
視覚障害者を対象に、市販の四足歩行ロボットと車輪型ロボットを屋内・屋外で比較実験し、四足歩行の歩容や騒音が誘導性能と信頼性を損なうことを示した。
著者: Luyao Wang, Qihe Chen, Yan Zhang, Ziang Li, Tingmin Yan, Fan Wang, Guyue Zhou, Jiangtao Gong
分類: cs.HC, cs.RO
原文アブストラクト
Quadruped robots have the potential to guide blind and low vision (BLV) people due to their highly flexible locomotion and emotional value provided by their bionic forms. However, the development of quadruped guide robots rarely involves BLV users' participatory designs and evaluations. In this paper, we conducted two empirical experiments both in indoor controlled and outdoor field scenarios, exploring the benefits and drawbacks of quadruped guide robots. The results show that the nowadays commercial quadruped robots exposed significant disadvantages in usability and trust compared with wheeled robots. It is concluded that the moving gait and walking noise of quadruped robots would limit the guiding effectiveness to a certain extent, and the empathetic effect of its bionic form for BLV users could not be fully reflected. Based on the findings of wheeled robots and quadruped robots' advantages, we discuss the design implications for the future guide robot design for BLV users. This paper reports the first empirical experiment about quadruped guide robots with BLV users and preliminary explores their potential improvement space in substituting guide dogs, which can inspire the further specialized design of quadruped guide robots.
