A four-legged ‘robodog’ that can 'see' its surroundings could eventually replace the trusty guide dog for the blind, according to its developers.
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00:00 Could this four-legged robodog eventually replace guide dogs?
00:05 Its Swiss developers are testing its ability to navigate the real world
00:09 and keep a blind or visually impaired person safe.
00:13 And they say it could have applications even beyond that.
00:17 The team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology say they've put together
00:25 a commercially available robotic dog and their own sensors and software.
00:31 Researcher Davide Plozza explains how it works.
00:34 Now we are using a two-dimensional LiDAR and also depth cameras,
00:39 which means our cameras that also see, that both see the pictures,
00:43 RGB images, but also the depth.
00:46 So you can create a depth map of the environment.
00:49 You can create a map on the spot and then can decide
00:53 which is the best path to take to reach the target.
00:57 And also in the meantime, it can avoid dynamic obstacles,
01:00 like if some people or some other obstacles show up, which were unexpected,
01:06 the system can successfully avoid them.
01:09 The team says the robodogs can be programmed to perform specific tasks
01:14 in environments it's never seen before, unlike real dogs.
01:18 That means it could also work to do things like help the elderly
01:21 or survey damaged buildings.
01:23 Professor Michel Emanuel.
01:25 We can have robots that are helping old people.
01:30 We are having some different kind of robots that can be used for
01:35 crack detection, actually, in the buildings.
01:39 For example, we are also working on making automatic detection
01:44 of damaging structures.
01:47 I think the same technology can be used in different kinds of applications.
01:53 Despite the potential of such a robodog, even the team acknowledges
01:56 how hard it would be to give up the real thing.
01:59 So I think this robot can really overperform the dogs,
02:03 but also can overperform humans and can be really helpful.
02:07 But me personally, I would still buy a dog.
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