視覚障害者向け道案内ロボットの設計
Designing a Wayfinding Robot for People with Visual Impairments
視覚障害者の屋内ナビゲーションを支援するため、音声指示で目的地まで自律的に経路計画し、ユーザーの位置を推定しながら周囲の状況を説明する道案内ロボットを開発した。
著者: Shuijing Liu, Aamir Hasan, Kaiwen Hong, Chun-Kai Yao, Justin Lin, Weihang Liang, Megan A. Bayles, Wendy A. Rogers, Katherine Driggs-Campbell
分類: cs.RO
原文アブストラクト
People with visual impairments (PwVI) often have difficulties navigating through unfamiliar indoor environments. However, current wayfinding tools are fairly limited. In this short paper, we present our in-progress work on a wayfinding robot for PwVI. The robot takes an audio command from the user that specifies the intended destination. Then, the robot autonomously plans a path to navigate to the goal. We use sensors to estimate the real-time position of the user, which is fed to the planner to improve the safety and comfort of the user. In addition, the robot describes the surroundings to the user periodically to prevent disorientation and potential accidents. We demonstrate the feasibility of our design in a public indoor environment. Finally, we analyze the limitations of our current design, as well as our insights and future work. A demonstration video can be found at https://youtu.be/BS9r5bkIass.
