Robots to Help the Blind

Timberwolf0122 writes "Computer scientists in the US have developed a robot that could help blind people to shop or find their way around large buildings. Utilising a RFID tags to find products and a laser range finder to avoid obsticals. The prototype was developed at Utah State University, is this the end of guide dogs?"

Comments

we're almost able to replace their eyes!

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe this effort should be going towards that instead? How far away are artificial eyes that are good enough for a blind person to shop? And if they're good enough to shop, they are probably good enough for a lot of things that that shopping robot won't be good for.

Re:we're almost able to replace their eyes!

[Kiliani]

In the long run you are probabaly right that artificial vision would be better than a robot (or even a guide dog) - see a recent story on artificial eyes.

Right now "vision implants" are not nearly as developed as their cousins, the cochlear implants. Those can help hearing impaired people (re)gain hearing (call it "artificial hearing", if you wish). People with CI's can learn to speak like anyone, although their hearing is still different from "typical" hearing.

It appears that, compared to the likely cost of developing artificial vision, the robot can be developed for next to nothing. And who knows, maybe it's useful for people with other ailments! Compromise: best to do both.

Artificial vision, just like cochlear implants, is really, really cool, and could help a LOT of people. I keep my fingers crossed!

Re:we're almost able to replace their eyes!

[fastfinge]

I read these artificial vision stories with a sense of dread. I've been completely blind for my entire life. If I could suddenly see, assuming the level of data input didn't drive me completely mad, I'd have to learn to do absolutely everything over again: I'd have to learn to read, learn colors, learn to navigate around my environment, to orient myself to visual rather than audible clues, to recognize faces and objects by vision rather than sound, etc, etc, etc. I'm betting this would take me at least 10 years, probably more. I'm not in the least interested in being a basket case for that long.

Simple answer: No.

[ta bu shi da yu]

The answer to this is no, because not all blind people want some impersonal robot. A dog is much nicer as it's alive and can make decisions in the external environment that a robot cannot make.

Re:Simple answer: No.

[tomhudson]

At least a robot won't get you into this sort of predicament:

I LIKE SEEING-EYE DOGS

The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought that
odd since they were normally a couple thousand each. I decided not to
look a gift horse in the mouth. I bought 200. I like seeing-eye dogs.

I took my 200 seeing-eye dogs home. I have a big car. I let one drive. His
name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really
bright. They kept licking their genitals. I laughed.
Then they bit my genitals. I stopped laughing.

I herded them into my room. They didn't adapt very well to their new
environment. They would bark, hurl themselves off of the couch at
high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the
spectacle lost its novelty halfway into its third hour.

Two hours later I found out why all the seeing-eye dogs were so inexpensive:
they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sorta' dropped dead.
Kinda' like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. Damn
cheap seeing-eye dogs.

I didn't know what to do. There were 200 dead seeing-eye dogs lying all over my
room, on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked
like I had 200 cheap hair pieces.

I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn't work. It got stuck.
Then I had one dead, wet seeing-eye dog and 199 dead, dry seeing-eye dogs.

I tried pretending that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for
a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real
bad.

I had to pee but there was a dead seeing-eye dog in the toilet and I didn't want
to call the plumber. I was embarrassed.

I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortunately
there was only enough room for two seeing-eye dogs at a time so I had to change
them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so
it didn't all go bad.

I tried burning them. Little did I know my bed was flammable. I had to
extinguish the fire.

Then I had one dead, wet seeing-eye dog in my toilet, two dead, frozen seeing-eye dogs in
my freezer, and 197 dead, charred seeing-eye dogs in a pile on my bed. The odor
wasn't improving.

I became agitated at my inability to dispose of my seeing-eye dogs and to use the
bathroom. I severely beat one of my seeing-eye dogs. I felt better.

I tried throwing them way but the garbage man said that the city wasn't
allowed to dispose of charred dogs. I told him that I had a wet
one. He couldn't take that one either. I didn't bother asking about the
frozen ones.

I finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My
friends didn't know quite what to say. They pretended that they like
them but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I bit them in
the genitals.

I like seeing-eye dogs

Hell no the end of dogs.

[FireballX301]

I have a cousin who is blind and uses a guide dog. A few weeks ago, his dog essentially mauled some burgler attempting a home invasion.

Robots may be fine and dandy for lab rat use, but in the real world where unexpected things happen, you need to have something that can adapt to emergencies, something that robots won't be able to do for a while.

Re:Hell no the end of dogs.

[syousef]

I have a cousin who is blind and uses a guide dog. A few weeks ago, his dog essentially mauled some burgler attempting a home invasion.

I'll trust a well trained dog over a robot/computer any day, and I consider myself a hardened geek. I find animals much more reliable and predictable than any system I've used.

Plus you get affection - and anyone who brings up virtual pets or robots being affectionate doesn't is self-dillusional and doesn't understand the benefit of a relationship with a real living thing.

No.

[dexterpexter]

No. As someone who was part of a team that worked on building autonomous robots (albeit for the I.G.V.C), I must say that, in my experience, the one thing that cannot be replaced (at least, not yet anyways) is instinct. (Neural Networking or no.) The dog offers companionship and thus a bond, which plays well with the dog's instincts in not just leading the person around and fetching things for them, but protecting them as well.

If people are concerned with replacing guide dogs (as they have relatively short lives and take a long time to train), they should consider guide horses. You may think I am crazy, but this has been successfully tested and is becoming more popular.

The horses live to be 25-40 years old, have binocular and monocular vision, and are very intelligent. They also have more instincts about safety than an algorithm, to date, can provide.

However, the robots are a very neat idea.

This just in...

[isny]

I tied my vacuum cleaner to my dog. Will this replace the roomba?

It's just not the same with a robot...

[DickeyWayne]

A blind man walks into a store, grabs his guide dog by the tail, and starts swinging him around in circles.

The clerk runs up. "Sir, can I help you?"

"Naaa. I'm just looking around."

Jokes just won't be as funny with robots.

Seeing eye dogs

[gkearney]

My wife is blind and uses a dog. Seeing Eye Dogs do not, as some believe, lead the blind person to where they want to go. The blind must still know where they want to go and how to get there.

The dog simply helps them to avoid things like curbs, stairs and so on. It does so by simply stoping at them and waiting for the blind person to give them instructions as to what to do next.

It is perfetly possible to get lost with a dog.

We have seen all sorts devices of this type all the time canes with sonar, devices with GPS, you name it. The fact remains that nothing will ever subsitute for proper mobility training for the blind.