Transforming the Machine Dog into an Intelligent Companion for the Visually Impaired: Design and Application of a Guide Dog Assistant Based on Quadruped Robots
Download PDF
$currentUrl="http://$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST]$_SERVER[REQUEST_URI]"

Keywords

Quadruped robot
Guide dog system
Suspended obstacle detection
Multi-sensor fusion

DOI

10.26689/jera.v9i4.11436

Submitted : 2025-07-09
Accepted : 2025-07-24
Published : 2025-08-08

Abstract

Aiming at the pain points of visually impaired people during travel, this research innovatively transforms an industrial quadruped robot into a guide dog device. By transplanting the PCS-9180 motion control system (1.7 m/s, IP66), and integrating a multi-modal perception network with a lightweight YOLO11 model. Tests show that the pass-through rate in complex terrains is 98%, the response delay is 0.3 seconds, and the cost is 50% that of a guide dog. The research verifies the social value of the transformation of industrial robot technology.

References

China Guide Dog Association, 2023, Annual Report on the Development of China’s Guide Dog Undertaking, China Braille Press, Beijing.

NARI Relays & Protection Intelligent Equipment Co, 2023, Technical White Paper on PCS-9180 Power Inspection Robotic Dog (Internal Document), Enterprise Technical Documentation Center, Nanjing.

National Health Commission, 2022, Blue Book on Rehabilitation Needs of Visually Impaired Populations in China, People’s Medical Publishing House, Beijing.

Intel Corporation, 2022, RealSense D455 Depth Camera Datasheet.

NVIDIA Jetson, 2023, Jetson Nano Developer Kit User Guide, NVIDIA Technical Documentation, Santa Clara.

National Standardization Administration Committee, 2021, GB/T 38046-2019 Guide Dog Training and Use Specifications, China Standards Press, Beijing.

China Disabled Persons’ Federation, 2023, Investigation Report on Mobility Aids for Visually Impaired Populations, Rehabilitation Research Center, Beijing.

ROS.org, 2023, Robotic Operating System Navigation Stack Documentation.

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, 2022, Quadruped Robot Locomotion Control: A Systematic Review. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 38(4): 2345–2367.

Zhang Y, et al., 2023, Lightweight Object Detection for Edge Devices. ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, 22(3): 1–18.

Wang L, Chen H, 2022, Multimodal Sensor Fusion in Assistive Robotics. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 10234–10240.

European Blind Union, 2023, Ethical Guidelines for AI-Assisted Navigation Devices.

Liu Z, et al., 2021, Haptic Feedback Design for Visually Impaired Users. IEEE Transactions on Haptics, 14(2): 356–364.

National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2022, Performance Metrics for Assistive Mobile Robots [NISTIR 8356].

Kim S, et al., 2023, Low-Cost Quadruped Robot Development Framework. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 159: 104291.