Robotic Guide Dogs for Blind-Low Vision Individuals

Guide dogs are a trusted form of assistive navigation for individuals with blindness or low vision (BLV). However, guide dogs have a limited working lifespan, high training and care costs, and require a profound commitment to maintain the well-being of multiple dogs over a BLV handler’s lifespan. The objective of the study was to adapt the Boston Dynamics Spot Explorer, a commercially available quadruped robot, as a navigation tool.

This work was done as an honors thesis at Colby College under Dr.Stacy Doore of the INSITE Lab and presented as a late breaking results at IROS 2023 and accepted as a full paper at RO-MAN 2024.