Seeing what the future holds

Introducing the robotic guide

It’s people like Perry that researchers had in mind when they conceived the robotic guide.

“We set out to give people more options by bringing robotic mobility aids to life,” explains Professor Sarath Kodagoda from the UTS Robotics Institute.

For the last three years, Kodagoda’s team has been working closely with Guide Dogs NSW/ACT to design, build and test the robotic guide. 

Seeing and not seeing

As the director of the UTS Robotics Institute, Kodagoda has built a career on what he calls “robotics for good”. He’s interested in the human impact of his creations – in robots that solve real problems for real people.

So when it came to this project, he started by putting on a blindfold, picking up a leash and putting his faith in a guide dog.

“The first step in bringing this idea to life is to experience how people with blindness or low vision navigate the environment,” he says.  

Making his way in the dark, he was surprised at how reliant he was on the guide dog.

“I found it extremely hard,” he says. “I don’t know what the terrain looks like. I don’t know where I am heading. I have no idea about the objects around me.”

Put simply: “It was eye-opening for me.”

But perhaps the most critical input for this project has been the voices of users, with co-design being a key principle from the outset. 

Working with the clients of Guide Dogs NSW/ACT, the first stage of co-design focused on informing the community about the project and using their input to develop the initial prototype.

The next stage involved testing the prototype with real users, like Perry. 

“As someone who's going to be using it,” she says, “I want to know that our voices are being heard.” 

One of the key pieces of feedback was that the prototype made too much noise, prompting the team to reconceive the guide as a smaller, quieter robot with fewer fans.

“We know we can make the experience for people better,” says Jodi Martin, General Manager of Innovation at Guide Dogs NSW/ACT.  

“But it has to be done in away that actually listens to the needs of people, and applies the new technology with them rather than being created in isolation.”

Broadening horizons

“At the moment, there are really two options for people for their main mobility aid: the guide dog or the white cane,” Martin says.  

Most people with blindness or low vision use a white cane.  

“It’s actually only a small percentage of people who have access to a guide dog,” she adds. 

Where the robotic guide is particularly interesting is in its potential to do some of the things that guide dogs and white canes can’t. A guide dog’s main function is to keep users safe while moving through a space – they can’t decide the most efficient route, respond to traffic, or navigate from A to B in an unfamiliar setting.

“The robot can actually pre-map places,” says Martin.  

“It can access images on the internet and can create those maps in advance.”

Operating in autonomous mode, the guide can take on some of the cognitive load, both in terms of planning the route then navigating there. It can even allow someone to be spontaneous, something Perry describes as “super exciting”.

Professor Kodagoda demonstrates: “Robot, can you take me to Central Station? That's all I need to say.”

For Martin, this is about choice as much as it is functionality.  

“We think that the robotic guide is really going to offer an experience that is better than a white cane,” she says.  

“Perhaps not quite as good as a guide dog, but opening up the experience to more people.”

A bold vision

While still only a prototype, the robotic guide has already won at the prestigious Excellence in Robotics Awards, taking out first place in the healthcare category. 

In the next stage of development, the team will look at whether the guide should retain its current form or potentially be applied in other ways, such as wearables. Kodagoda says the team deliberately designed the technology in a modular way to make it easier to adapt to different uses.  

“I can see a white cane or a guide dog harness having some of this technology added to it,” Martin says.  

“The way that it is hopefully going to evolve is really exciting because it’s like this middle ground of something that we haven’t really seen before,” Perry adds.

What appeals most to Perry is that it can take on some of the mental load of planning and mapping, while also reducing the immediate in-the-moment strain of navigating the environment.

“I really hope that with this project not only are we creating something that's impactful, but we can change the conversation around assistive technologies and the way that they're developed,” Martin says.

Kodagoda echoes the sentiment. “This project has changed the way that I think about accessibility,” he says.

“Robotics has great potential in helping people with blindness and low vision.”